by Dalia Wright
“Wow,” Rose replied, holding a hand over her mouth as she giggled. “Is, uh, Fluffy okay?” She recalled the image of her black and white cat, with the tuft of white on his nose and chin that made him look like he had a huge, jutting lower jaw.
“Yeah, yeah. Your father's called in an actual plumber now, so the issue should be fixed soon...”
Rose talked to her mother for another five minutes before wrapping up the call, with a promise to call again next week. She handed the phone back to Sebastian with a smile, and thanked him. The old and emaciated Filip then barked something in Bulgarian, and Sebastian translated.
“He wants to know if your parents are missing you.”
Rose shook her head. “Not really. She likes hearing from me but she likes not having me under her foot more.”
Sebastian translated, and Filip shot back with another question.
“Are you busy in life? We will be happy to send you back to Sofia soon. Otherwise, I have a proposal for you.”
Rose listened to the translation, her heart beating a little faster. What did the old man mean by that?
Sebastian continued translating.
“We are a rich and powerful family in this region. It is of value to us to have trustworthy humans knowing the secret, as the werewolf bloodlines tend to wear thin with the limited gene pool we are given. We need a caretaker for the nameless baby. And perhaps in the future, if you’d be so willing, you may bind yourself to any of the males we have here. Isn't Sebastian a handsome man? He is eligible.” (Sebastian rolled his eyes at this.)
Rose's jaw hung in shock at the announcement.
“That is not a necessity, of course. It is merely a desire of mine to look after the pack. I am impressed by your resilience and receptivity to our ways. I believe you will be a good choice to look after the little one.”
Um. What? I can't even hold a baby without dropping it, let alone look after one.
“We would, of course, pay you for your time and effort.”
Completely forgoing all sense of courtesy, Rose blurted out at Sebastian, “Are you serious? You guys kind of kidnap women and ask them to marry your kind?”
Sebastian appeared almost sheepish as he said, “Yes. There are exceptionally few female werewolves in the world. For some reason, more males are born. No one knows why. We have around five known female werewolves in Bulgaria, in comparison to the fifty-something males.”
The statistic astonished Rose. She played with her long sleeves as she took in the information, all sorts of feelings mixing inside her personal cauldron. “Jesus. So you guys need human females to keep going, right?”
Sebastian nodded. “If one stumbles into knowledge of our kind, we find it necessary to keep them around. Especially when they prove to be trustworthy.”
His grandfather said something, and he translated again. “Uh. He says you will make a fine mother and bear strong-willed children. He can see it in your face.”
It's official. These people are insane. Rose suppressed the urge to laugh hysterically. She'd been kidnapped. And asked to become an unexpected foster carer for a werewolf baby. With the offer to marry a werewolf guy at some point in the future.
Holy fucking shit. I need to sit down. Noting she was, in fact, sitting down, she began gnawing on her left set of knuckles. Nope. I've died and gone to crazy land.
She also, admittedly, didn't see any of the resilience Filip mentioned in herself. Hopping across a country and enrolling in a Bulgarian art school did not make her someone tough. Neither did not screaming in their faces and protesting about the whole situation, because there was no point.
If she really wanted to escape, it would be easier if her captors thought her unlikely to run.
After another awkward exchange of sentences, Sebastian and Rose went to check in on the nameless baby.
A woman dressed in a cleaning outfit was crooning over the baby, and greeted them with something that sounded like Zdravey. The baby, upon seeing Rose and Sebastian, immediately began flailing and making distressed noises. At first, Rose thought it was because he was terrified of them.
It turned out to be quite the opposite.
Standing over the baby, she saw his chubby little fingers reach out for her, and the distressed noises continued, until she picked the swaddled baby up and held him in her arms.
The baby quietened. He blinked at her, then said, “Guh.”
The cleaner appeared animated, and she waved a formula bottle in front of Rose. Rose took it, and Sebastian translated for her, “This is what they're using to feed him at the moment. She wants you to try. She thinks the baby likes you.”
Uh huh.
She took the bottle and smiled at the lady, who had brown eyes, olive skin and long, dark hair, with the slender build of a willow tree. The baby's eyes followed the bottle, and his gurgling increased in intensity until she stuffed the teat end into his mouth.
Sebastian watched her with a peculiar expression on his face. That playful, heart-rending smile then crept upon his lips, again generating that annoying, yeah-okay-I-find-him-attractive jitter in her stomach.
She did, but it didn't take away the fact that she'd been asked to effectively become part of a werewolf tribe. Just not become an actual werewolf.
This decision required thought. Lots of thought. And possibly some extra, intimate conversations with Sebastian – including perhaps where all the other eligible males were.
She had a feeling, though, that Sebastian liked her. Something in the way when she glanced over in his direction, he always seemed to be devoted to giving her attention. The smiles, the little moments he took to get close enough to touch – the way he eagerly imparted information to her, wanting her to see the good side of everything, though she suspected there to be a dark, ominous side of werewolves as well.
After all, Sebastian spoke so casually of the deaths that had occurred in their families, of the troubles their ancestors went through.
She examined him, even as she cradled the nameless child, which slurped at the bottle she balanced in one hand. She'd split up with her last boyfriend before moving to Bulgaria, simply because he didn't believe in long-distance relationships. She’d found out three days after the split that he'd leapt into bed with her best friend, Danielle.
Danielle obviously wasn't her best friend anymore.
Feeling as if she had nothing to lose, she said, “So, why is this place so empty? I mean, it looks like it can house hundreds of people, but there's only you, your grandpa, I think you said a sister as well? And some cleaning and cooking attendants.”
Sebastian gave a wan smile. “The rest are either out helping the Spirovas against the three Russian clans who have invaded our home soil, or they are hunting for Ivelina Lubanov.”
“Oh,” Rose said. Invasion. Werewolves. Danger. “Do these... invasions happen frequently?”
“No. The risk of loss of life is usually too great to merit attempts to take over long-established territories. But it seems there is incentive for them.” He prowled forward, and peered over her shoulder with his formidable height at the baby, who promptly locked eyes with him, and flailed one arm as if waving.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and his eyes dimmed, his expression drooped in sorrow.
“What for?” Rose felt conscious of his breath upon her neck, the closeness of his body to hers, and the heat that emanated from his tight, muscular frame. He smelled good. She struggled for the word in her head, before alighting on petrichor. The smell of wet earth after rainfall. The heady scent of nature that soothed and relaxed when it wormed its way through her nasal canal.
She wondered what she might smell like to him, or look like. She wasn't exactly ugly, but neither did she expect to appear on the cover of a modeling magazine.
She also wondered just how serious Filip was about his offer.
Good God. I'm actually contemplating it.
“I'm sorry that you have been whisked so rudely from your life. I know it's a lot to take
in. And my grandfather has just placed the mark of heavy responsibility in your lap as well. He can be quite straightforward in these matters.”
“Yeah... you're telling me. I have to ask,” Rose said, though her emotions twitched in anxiety when she considered the question she intended to say, “could you have taken the baby without capturing me?”
Sebastian stared at her a long time. “I don't know. I wouldn't have known about it until you told me. I would have assumed it was yours if I heard it. But... well. Here we are.”
“Here we are,” Rose agreed. She noticed the baby had stopped feeding, and was now sleeping, or trying to, except she had the bottle shoved in his face. “Oops.”
“Do you think you might be interested in caring for him?”
Rose didn't know. It would be a hell of a thing to explain to her mother and father back home, that she'd suddenly decided to look after someone's abandoned baby.
Let alone the whole werewolf thing.
A darker, ominous thought crept into her mind. Maybe I don't have a choice. Maybe they will take it for granted that I'll agree. And if I don't...
How hard is it to find a body in the mountains?
Chapter Four
Sebastian Gregorovitch observed Rose Talbot as she slept, a strange feeling lodging in his throat. He'd lied to her a little about what Filip wanted.
His grandfather, although certainly amongst the nicer of the old generations Sebastian had spoken to, still held some interesting notions about what people should do.
Including the fact that he had asked Sebastian to take on the human as his mate, by any means necessary.
Nothing at all like the nice, polite suggestion Sebastian had implied to Rose. Filip seemed to believe that Sebastian liked her, clearly enough to take her with him when he had failed in his search for Ivelina, but gained her baby in return.
Unfortunately, Sebastian had also given the impression to the old patriarch that Rose had agreed to stay with him.
So, somehow, he needed to convince Rose that it would be a worthwhile investment to stick around. He liked her looks. The vibrant, blue eyes in her ghostly, alabaster face that looked so wide and innocent, those plump lips, her soft, curly red hair that resembled a sunset, the way she smelled like spices, and that hesitant, calculating way she stared at everything around her certainly captured his attention.
He admitted he might have panicked a bit when it came to the decision to knock her out and spirit her away to the Gregorovitch family estate. It also boiled down to the pressure he'd been getting from his grandfather to find a nice, eligible young woman soon. All the female werewolves of the region had been accounted for. Filip wanted him to find a nice, strong-willed woman – not someone who had a tendency to weep and whine. Werewolf children needed a solid, formidable set of parents.
All well and good, except Sebastian never found anyone who appealed to him. He'd slept around, tried different women with limited success, finding them too fragile or unsuitable to introduce to the werewolf world.
Then, he had taken Rose before she even had a chance to be scoped out.
And somehow, she might actually be perfect.
Standing at the doorway and peeking at her might not be the best way to endear her to him. Neither was threatening her to not reveal the existence of werewolves – though if Sebastian had to be perfectly honest, probably about two percent of all humans in the world likely knew or at least suspected the presence of werewolves anyway.
She looked so beautiful, so peaceful lying there, without any worry crinkle burnt into her features. Filip loved her looks as well – Sebastian remembered his grandpa having a great love for redheads, saying they had wonderful, fiery personalities and strong genes.
His mother and father didn't care quite so fanatically as Filip. They just wanted their son to be happy with his choices – and to not make the same mistakes the Lubanovs and Armanevs made.
I wonder if she can learn to like me? I wouldn't want to force her to be something. I would like... to see her smile. To laugh. To not be afraid of this world.
He breathed deeply, surprised at the excitement pooling in his stomach, and the quiver of arousal that came with the infatuating idea.
Before Rose woke up and spotted him creeping on her, he silently removed himself from the room, and strode down to Filip's study, where the old man currently sat on his favorite armchair, puffing from an ivory pipe.
Sebastian's cousin, Kostya, was talking to the ancient in a low undertone, his gray eyes drooped in sadness. The mood of the room dropped – the chill became palpable, and Sebastian walked up to his relatives, dreading the news that might pass. Maybe one of them had died in the clan clash over Musala peak. Maybe they still hadn't found Ivelina.
“Grandson,” Filip said, waving an old, veiny hand. His white, bushy brow displayed creases like mountain crags, so deep-set that they might have been sculpted there. The waft of strong tobacco poisoned the air. “Young Kostya here has revealed to me some bad news. I am sorry.”
Kostya faced his cousin. Sebastian emptied his mind of all thought, not wanting to leap to any assumptions.
“Ivelina Lubanov is dead. Her body was found in the early hours of this morning. We're unsure of who her assailant or assailants are, as their scent is unfamiliar. But it does look like she had very good reason to keep running from us.”
Sebastian knew Filip would be lamenting the loss of the descendants of his great-grandmother's children – he had been so upset to learn of the corruption that held the entire bloodline in a choke-hold. The Lubanovs were once their closest allies.
As for Ivelina herself, Sebastian never knew her. He only knew of the need to track her down, once she had emerged from whatever hole she'd been stuffed down.
“Her child will never know his real mother,” Sebastian said, a strange edge of desperation combining with his initial sorrow, because he knew that there would be increased pressure on him to take Rose for the job. “I find that sad.”
Kostya's gray eyes flickered with an indiscernible emotion as he nodded.
“We have a substitute mother. Sebastian has managed to snag a beautiful woman whom the baby seems to be quite attached to. So I am positive things will work out in the end,” Filip said, with a beaming, proud smile directed at his grandson. “I look forward to seeing her at some of our family dinners.”
“Is that so?” Kostya peered at Sebastian in interest, caught off-guard by the news at the same time Sebastian broke out in a fresh sheen of sweat.
“Yes. She's called Rose.”
Fuck. I need to somehow make this work. Or my grandpa's gonna murder me.
“We'll need to change the baby's surname, I think,” Filip said. “Lubanov still triggers people. So we might need to formally adopt him as a Gregorovitch. Though we'll need to deal with the human authorities on the right of adoption. So that might be a headache.”
Most of the statement went over Sebastian's head. He was too busy panicking over the fact that he needed to get Rose to like him enough to stay.
Should not have lied. I'm an idiot. I'm the one who uprooted her entire life. I'd hate me.
When he left the room, he headed straight to the kitchen to nab a drink.
Chapter Five
Day fifteen of my subsequent kidnapping. The worse they've done to me since caving in my skull is to give me cheese and pickle sandwiches, and ask me to become a fake mother to the surprise baby.
The offer of living in this neat and fancy mansion appealed to me. Being surrounded by werewolves – not so much. Sebastian mentioned something about poor impulse control.
Sebastian... her thoughts spiraled around him. What should she feel about him?
A nervous, excited fluttering pulsed in her stomach, sending trickles of pleasure through her veins. Maybe she did like him. More than expected. Then again, if he was the only man she was exposed to day in and day out, of course she might grow a little attracted to him. Then there was the whole fact that he happened to be
fucking gorgeous.
I suppose I am far too seriously considering swapping my paintbrush for what appears to basically be Bulgarian aristocracy.
She showered, placed on a yellow sundress, and was just spending time carefully de-tangling her hair in front of the triple mirror dressing table, when someone frantically knocked at her door, whom she guessed to be Sebastian.
“Come in,” she said. “I won't bite...”
The curly-haired werewolf sauntered in, though Rose caught a slight aura of panic emanating from him. “Wow, what's with you?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Sebastian said, waving a bag of cookies at her. “Aside from the fact I may have lied to you... a little.”
Rose stared at him with a guarded expression, one eyebrow jerking. “About what?” She placed the hairbrush down, noting some of her hair frizzed out from static electricity. Sebastian shuffled on the spot, as if debating something, before striding up to her and grasping her by the shoulder.
Immediately, Rose found herself hyper-alert, surprise snaking over her skin. Those mysterious silver eyes, like full moons trapped between long eyelashes, gazed at her with such intensity that she felt sections of a resolve she didn't know she possessed crumbling into nothing. The slivers of interest and attraction she bore towards him quite suddenly blossomed into something intense and burning.
“Oh my,” she said, as the werewolf bent down to kiss her on the lips for the first time. Their lips danced a slow waltz, testing out the sensations the act unraveled in their tense bodies.
He pulled away gently, those hooded eyes crinkled in joy. “I've been wanting to do that within an hour of you waking up. If I'm honest.”
Rose needed a moment to catch her breath. Her cheeks burned scarlet, and she had slight difficulties keeping herself upright. “Wow. That's one way to charm your way into my panties. Much better than braining me.”
He grinned triumphantly, his eyes dilating, flaring up in lust. His grip became tighter, and he whisked her off her feet, and twirled her around before settling her onto the bed.