by Hettie Ivers
My blood seethed at the knowledge that the first pack my mate had looked to for acceptance and guidance as an innocent new wolf had dared to label her an abomination and had openly persecuted her for her astonishing survival. I’d had zero qualms about the retribution I’d dealt the Highlands Ranch pack last night.
“Are you always this apologetic and hospitable to the women you drug and abduct?”
“Huh? Never. I mean, no, I don’t drug and abduct women. You’re the first.” Christ, I was an idiot. It wasn’t helping that all the blood in my body settled just below my belt whenever I was near her.
She giggled. “Am I the first because I bit you? Sorry ’bout that, by the way. Dr. Kai says it’s going to heal just fine, though.”
My eyes cut to Kai, who was pretending to be busy on his laptop. How dare he feed her that lie?
“Dr. Kai is mistaken,” I told her carefully, watching closely to gauge her reaction. “You marked me. Permanently. There’s no question of it. And no reversing it.”
She paused in chewing as her body froze—her fork suspended midair on its way to her mouth.
“Do you know what it means to mark another werewolf?”
Slowly, she shook her head. Foregoing the bite of food on her raised fork, she set it down and reached for her glass of water instead.
“Werewolves mark their mates with a special bite that is permanent. One that will leave a definitive scar, regardless of any supernatural healing abilities.”
She set her water glass down and reached for the pot of coffee on the table.
“There’s a unique venom that’s released from our fangs when we will it—one that is different from the normal venom we release to attack or turn prey. Traditionally, it happens during moments of peak arousal, because the special venom that’s required to mark a mate gets released when our inner animal feels profoundly stirred to bind another to us forever.”
“One caveat,” Kai inserted, “is the recipient of the marking must be in a sufficient state of arousal, and therefore receptive to the one delivering the bite, in order for the mark to take.”
Her hands shook as she raised the cup of black coffee she’d just poured for herself to her lips and took a sip. “Interesting,” she muttered dazedly. “Must’ve skipped the day they covered that one in werewolf parochial school.”
Shit. She was completely shell-shocked.
I leaned forward, closer to her, resting my elbows on my knees. “Honey, I know you grew up as a human, and that this is all new for you. But I promise, everything’s going to be fine. I’m not going to force you to do anything, or push feelings or relationship demands on you before you’re ready.”
“It just seems so weird,” she said after a pause, staring blankly at a spot on the table. “Weird that no one’s ever bitten you before me.” Her brown eyes lifted to mine. “Exactly how old are you? Is there something wrong with you that I should know about?”
“Ha!” Kai barked out a laugh and mumbled, “Where to start?”
I choked and coughed amid the sudden fit of humor that overcame me as well, before answering, “I was born in 1604. I’ll be four hundred nineteen years old in about four months—on November twelfth. There are a lot of things wrong with me that you should probably know about, but I’d prefer it if we took this one step at a time and let you get to know me and figure them out as we go along, if that’s all right?”
I gave her what I hoped was my most charming, nonthreatening smile. Getting her to accept this as a foregone conclusion was the first step in wearing down the barriers she’d erected.
“And to answer your other question,” Kai piped up, much to my chagrin, “being the ancient and powerful werelock that he is, Alcaeus has the ability, if he acts promptly”—he shot me a meaningful look—“to block the progress of your simple werewolf mating venom and prevent your mark from becoming permanent.”
Asshole.
He crossed his arms over his chest in self-satisfaction as my mate’s jaw fell open and her eyes widened at me in accusation. “I was not mistaken,” Kai asserted. “In fact, it’s worked successfully enough in the past whenever a power-hungry, conniving bitch has attempted to lay claim to Al’s wolf.”
“It’s not the same, Kai, and you know it!” I blasted him.
I decided to lay it all out and make my intentions known. She was obviously confused about what was happening between us—about what our mate bond even meant. As was Kai, apparently, if he thought that the mark was all that this was about.
“Look, Cynthia, what happened between us yesterday when we first met was an act of fate. This bond between us—it’s predestined. For me, we were mated the moment we saw one another. The marking makes it official, yes, but it’s nothing but a formality at this point.”
She looked from me to Kai, as if she was unsure of who or what to believe.
“Don’t get me wrong; you marking me yesterday was the single greatest moment of my life, and I have absolutely no desire or intention of reversing it.” I delivered the last part to Kai. “But this”—I gestured between us—“isn’t about a bite.”
Her brow furrowed. She looked lost. Looked so small and fragile, the way she had in the bathroom when she’d been so startled that she’d shot at me.
“You can’t imagine how awful I feel—how sorry I am that I haven’t been there for you for all these years. That I wasn’t around to protect you from a rogue attack. That I wasn’t there to assist your initial werewolf transformation and keep the pain from you that you undoubtedly experienced.”
She pursed her lips, giving nothing away. Then she picked up her fork and started eating again, shutting me out.
I kept talking anyway.
This needed to be said.
“I like to think that to some degree, up until this point, my ancestors have protected you—my predestined mate—in my stead. But I’m here now. The bad things that have happened to you—those scars on your ribs from your human life”—I shook my head, wincing internally at the pain they must’ve caused her—“nothing like that will ever happen to you again. I swear it on my life, Cynthia.”
“Your mate’s name is Averhilda, by the way,” Kai supplied. “Let me know if you need help coming up with a mnemonic device for it.”
Alcaeus
“Averhilda? Averhilda is your real name?”
She looked like she was getting ready to deny it and lie to me again as she rapidly chewed and swallowed the bite of food in her mouth, so I headed her off.
“Boar-like in battle—it totally suits you,” I rushed to say. “I love it!”
She made a face of surprise—or maybe horror—like she couldn’t believe that I knew what it meant. Either that or it was one of horror that I’d professed to love it.
“It’s awful,” she said. “I go strictly by Avery. Don’t ever call me Averhilda if you want me to answer.”
“Got it,” I readily agreed. “I love the name Avery even better.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Kai roll his eyes in disgust. I knew that I was probably grinning from ear to ear like a cheeseball, but I didn’t care. I didn’t give a damn what Kai or anyone else thought of me or of my situation with Avery.
“Do his eyes always twinkle and smile like this?” Avery asked Kai, her mouth half-stuffed with home fries as she jerked her chin in my direction. “Do you constantly feel like you’re left out of a private joke whenever you’re around him?”
A laugh burst from Kai’s chest—a genuine one. His sulky demeanor momentarily cracked and his eyes sparked at Avery’s observation. “Yes, actually. I do feel that way most of the time.”
She nodded once. “Thought so.” She brushed her hands together, dusting the crumbs and salt from her fingertips, before announcing, “I need a shower. Mind if I borrow yours?” she asked me directly.
My cock jumped in response as my imagination ran rampant with visions of showering with Avery—of sliding my hands all over her wet, soapy curves. Of tasting her wet skin in my
mouth; of sliding her slick body against my own inside the shower stall; of fucking her against the tiled wall—both from the front and from the rear; of holding her spread thighs open wide between my biceps as I held her high in the air and ate her out—sliding her squirming ass up and down the slippery tiled wall as I licked and sucked and—
“Wowza!” Avery’s breathy exclamation jarred me back to reality to find her staring at the obvious erection tenting my pants.
“I need a shower, too,” I blurted without thinking. My brain was toast.
She shook her head, biting her smiling lip. “I didn’t invite you.” She stood from the little dining table. “But maybe later.” She tilted her head to the side, and her eyes gave me a flirtatious once-over that projected some kind of maddening contradiction between “give me space” and “fuck me senseless.”
I was dangerously close to ripping through the seam of my slacks.
Then she did the inconceivable. She grabbed the hem of her tank top and pulled it over her head, exposing the knife scars on her ribs that she’d denied me access to before. I didn’t have time to decide between anger and arousal as she unsnapped her bra and tossed it on the floor to join her discarded top.
So I settled on shock.
And awe.
Her breasts were perfect, exquisite mounds. Not precisely symmetrical like the breasts of a female who’d been born a she-werewolf or werelock would’ve been, but full and natural and—real.
Like everything else about her.
The sight of her hard nipples straining for the heavens—beckoning me to devour them—all but sent me to my knees.
I swallowed and nearly choked when she unbuttoned and unzipped her fly, turned her back to me, and pulled her jeans and underwear down. She stepped out of her discarded clothes, then stood and looked back over her shoulder at me.
Whether she did it to make sure that I was still watching her little show, or to see if I’d already come in my pants, I couldn’t say.
I didn’t have the mental capacity to contemplate it because I was too busy struggling to breathe like I’d only learned how to use my lungs five minutes ago, as my eyes feasted on the stunning sight of her gorgeous naked body, of all that golden-olive skin on display, of her mouthwatering ass—and of the scars that crisscrossed her back. And the one on her left hamstring that looked like it had been made by a belt buckle.
I’d never been torn between so many conflicting emotions and corporeal sensations at once before.
“Who? What? Names,” I finally demanded, every muscle in my body vibrating, straining against my wolf’s urge to shift and go to her—and then to run and kill whoever had left these scars on her. “Addresses,” I clipped out.
Hands planted on her hips, she pivoted to face me. “Been there, Chaos. Done that.” One corner of her mouth kicked up. “I can only give you cemetery plot numbers.”
“W-what?”
“Deceased,” she clarified. “Caput. Six feet under.”
I felt myself frown. I didn’t understand. My brain had stopped working. I tried and failed to do the math.
“You strike me as a guy who might like to overindulge his hero complex. So I just want you to know, I’m good.”
“Hero complex?” I shook my head. “I don’t have a hero complex.”
“Look, I get it,” she said with a little smile. “You grew up in ancient times. I appreciate that you want to be chivalrous and protect me from the world. But I didn’t grow up in the seventeenth century. And I can’t be that damsel for you.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Never been wired that way.”
There was a long pause as I willed my brain to function to no avail. I just sat there, staring, at a loss, trying to figure out which of my wounded organs was in more distress—my dick or my heart.
“We cool?” she checked.
I didn’t respond. I could barely comprehend what the hell had just happened.
Her gaze flicked to Kai, reminding me of the fact that he was still in the room with us.
“Nice boner, Doc,” she said as she strutted past him on her way to the bathroom. “Knew you were crushin’.”
Once the bathroom door had shut and locked behind her, Kai said, “You totally have a hero complex.”
After I’d worked my jaw off the ground, punched Kai for getting a chubby, and then rubbed my own out in the hotel suite’s second bathroom, I was able to assess the situation with restored brain cells and see just how well everything was going already between Avery and me.
My woman was absolute perfection, ideal for me in every way. I was so high in love that there was no coming down.
“Let’s examine the contents of her bag, shall we?” Kai’s voice droned in my ear, calling my attention back to the “evidence” he’d gathered snooping into Avery’s human background—as well as her backpack. “Ah, what’s this? Grenades. Both the deadly kind and the annoying stun kind. How adorable,” he deadpanned. “What’s next? Oh, here’s a handgun. With a silencer—you know, in case she needs to murder someone without the neighbors hearing.”
Despite my mounting irritation with Kai over his disdainful behavior toward my mate, I couldn’t quell the shit-eating grin that had broken out on my face as he revealed the awesome contents of Avery’s backpack. My mate was the cutest little badass that ever was.
He pulled a ziplock bag of unmarked pill bottles out next. “Pills,” he said with feigned exuberance. “How utterly precious. What could they be, you ask? Oh, just some ovulation suppression hormones, is all. Who has time to go into heat when you’ve got rogue hunters to slay?”
“Sensible.” I gave a thumbs up.
That was the best item he’d pulled out yet. The idea of my mate going into heat without me near her was abhorrent. Thank God she’d had those pills. She wouldn’t need them anymore, though.
“I’ll take those,” I told him, pulling the bag from his hand and chucking them straight into the trashcan in the corner.
He groaned and lectured, “Al, at least dispose of them properly.” He walked to the trashcan and retrieved them. “Oh, hey, I’ll just take care of it for you.” He tossed them into his medical bag. “As usual,” he appended under his breath.
I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. Not getting laid in over a century had taken a serious toll on his personality.
Kai pulled several stacks of cash from Avery’s backpack next. They looked to be mostly small bills—twenties and fifties. I whistled low and shook my head, busting up laughing. It was all just too cute.
“Getaway funds, perhaps?” Kai said. “Stolen, maybe?” He shrugged. “Who can say for sure? Well, we could say for sure—if her mind wasn’t blocked off by the most intricate mind shield that our kind has ever encountered, right?” He pulled a phone from the side pocket of Avery’s backpack. “But let’s not worry about that mind block just now. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for it that is in no way a threat to our lives.
“Let’s talk about this instead, shall we?” He held the phone up for me to see and pressed the button to access its programmed contacts. “There are just two contacts programmed into Avery’s phone. And they’re both for the same number. One is labeled ‘Friend,’ and the other is labeled ‘Scary Stranger.’ No doubt this amounts to more adorableness to you, and you’re not the least bit curious, but dare we call the number and see who this contact might be?” He raised a challenging brow.
The better man I wanted to be for Avery would’ve said no. But I wasn’t that man. Yet. I grabbed the phone out of Kai’s hand and pressed the call button.
Avery
I’d always done my best thinking and masturbating in the shower. But there was no time for the latter now, so I tried to wash Chaos’s divine scent off me in an attempt to restore my focus. His musk was too distracting. The man smelled of raw, carnal lust. Of dark, primitive cravings, and a dirty side of original sin.
I couldn’t risk shagging him again, though.
How was I going to shake these guys? Th
ink, Avery. Think.
I needed to get back to Sloane. To get a message to Azda soon at the very least.
Hmm … Alcaeus had just sworn on his life to never let anything bad happen to me ever again. He’d professed to feel awful about not being there to protect me from the rogue attack or the knife fights I’d been in as a teen.
The rational, intelligent adult in me knew that he had to be full of shit no matter how genuine he seemed. Either that or he was nuts. In which case, there was a decent chance I’d be able to leverage that misplaced guilt of his to get my hands on a computer and Internet access. I’d just have to be careful about which online message board I used to communicate in code with Sloane if I did it from any of Alcaeus and Kai’s computer equipment.
If the guilt tactic didn’t work, maybe I’d claim that the ancestors who’d been looking out for me in Alcaeus’s absence all this time said that he should give me Internet access. I chuckled at the notion of actually trying to say that one with a straight face. If all else failed, I could always invent a prophecy about it, I supposed. Superbeasts who put stock in ancestors and predestined mates would definitely be all about prophecies, too.
Supernatural idiosyncrasies aside, Chaos was pretty darn adorable—in a weird, old-school kind of way.
I could admit to it.
I smiled to myself as I recalled the look on his face—and the bulge in his crotch—when I’d dropped trou next to the breakfast table.
I definitely wouldn’t mind fucking him again. I could admit to that, too.
Eyes closed beneath the shower spray, I was getting ready to shut the heavenly warm water off and go con my “predestined mate” into giving me Internet access, when suddenly I felt a muscled arm materialize around my waist. As it did, a hard, clothed male body squeezed up against me from behind and a palm clamped over my wet mouth before I could let out a scream.