Under the Mask: A Multi-Genre Collection

by Monica Corwin

  I tried to pick my brothers out of the crowd and prayed none of them witnessed me walking out with Raven. Not that it was their business, but I’d never hear the end of it once we were home.

  Chapter Two

  I held her tight if only to convince myself that she was real. I’d hunted for my mate, for years, scouring the continent. The moment I caught her scent in the ballroom I’d pinpointed her easily. When she turned to go I almost shifted involuntarily for the first time in a decade. The fact that I’d been able to hold it together in her presence for hours now only spoke to my degree of need for her. I couldn’t scare her away.

  We entered the elevator, alone, the soft piano accompanying the tension growing between us. I probably shouldn’t have bitten her, but oh how I couldn’t resist.

  Her fingers had shifted from clutching my palm to interlacing her fingers between mine. Her small hand in my larger one fit perfectly. It took a hundred years to get to the penthouse I booked. As the door slid open, I relished in her wide-eyed stare.

  She stepped into the room almost gingerly and released my hand.

  “Is this your room?”

  I laughed. “Of course, whose room do you think I’d bring you to?”

  She shrugged and wobbled again. I caught her. “Please, allow me.”

  I knelt at her feet and gently pried open the clasp on her ankle, releasing the prong. She held onto my shoulders as I pulled her shoe off her foot from the heel. Her toes were painted a deep midnight blue with glitter sparkles in it. I shifted to the other foot and rubbed the balls of her feet carefully before setting it back down. I glanced up the line of her body and wanted nothing more than to have her right there. Claim her as my own. Her head was thrown back her bottom lip caught between her teeth. I stood and grasped the back of her neck with my hand and pulled her to my lips.

  It was a liberty I should have asked for. I wanted to wait. I wanted to show her what I had to offer before convincing her to be mine, or at the very least give me a chance. But in that moment there was no resistance to the force of my attraction or arousal. I kissed her with everything I held back and released it in a passionate embrace of lips and teeth.

  When the maelstrom passed, I released her mouth but held her face close to mine still. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She swallowed and let out a gust of air.

  “Thank you,” she replied hoarsely. “You are beautiful too. Can I take off your mask? I want to look at you.”

  She fit her thumb under the edge of the mask and lifted up and off my head. Her intake of breath caused a pang in my chest.

  “You’re stunning,” she whispered.

  I followed suit and tossed her mask away to join mine discarded on the floor. “You are too.”

  She retreated, and I let her go. “So, you wanted to tell me something?”

  I gave her credit for her resolve. She had only give me a look, and I'd crawl on my knees, gladly.

  I cleared my throat and ran my hand down my ponytail. “Yes, if you like. But I have a question for you first.”

  She crossed her arms under her breasts. “Okay, shoot.”

  I smiled. Her candor, her no-bullshit attitude, was exactly my kind of woman.

  “What would you give me if I helped you shift?”

  Her brow furrowed, and she blinked a few times. Her face unreadable.

  “What do you mean, ‘what would I give you’?”

  “I have a way that might help you shift. But, it would cost you, a high price at that.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “I’m willing to barter in trade.”

  Her eyebrow went up and her hands cupped her hips. “You think I will prostitute myself so I can shift?”

  As someone who understood his pack well, I’d bet a lot of money she would. I wasn’t about to say that out loud though.

  “I thought you said...”

  “You misunderstand me. I can help you shift, but in exchange, you will be my mate.”

  Her mouth flopped open. “What pack leader in their right mind would want a disabled shifter as a mate? Are you insane?”

  Anger flared through me at her word. Disabled.

  I stalked forward and seized her in my arms. “You are perfectly healthy. You just haven’t been given every opportunity available to you. This pack is relatively new in the hierarchy. The old ways, the magic, that is what I bring to the pack. I bring magic and change. But I need a strong woman to help me lead.”

  She swallowed but didn’t push me away and for that I stayed still, not pressing her further until she asked what no doubt lingered on her tongue. “Why me?”

  I leaned down and brushed my mouth against her ear, she shivered in my arms. “Because you are my mate. It's a certain to me as the sky is blue, and the grass is green.”

  “But...”

  I trailed my lips down her neck in feather light caresses.

  “But, what...” I whispered between kisses.

  “I don’t know. I...”

  “Say you will consider it and that will be enough for me.”

  I was perilously close to begging. No, I’d beg her in a heartbeat if that was what might push her toward the decision I needed.

  “What does it entail exactly? I don’t even know you. I can’t marry you.”

  I seized on that. “We could Handfast. Joined together for one year and one day. Would you give me a year?”

  I cupped her face now, meeting her eyes, pleading with my own. “Give me a year for the ability to shift? I promise once the contract is finished, if you don’t want me, then I will release you.”

  She smiled. “There are worse things than dating a handsome pack-master, I suspect.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  I lifted her around the waist and spun her in a circle before putting her down. “I’ll call to the desk.”

  “For what?”

  “We need it officiated.”

  “But, my family....”

  “Your brothers are here. Do you want me to get them?”

  Her eyes went wild, and I offered ground. “It can be just us. We need not tell anyone until you wish.”

  She nodded. “Let’s keep it between us and ease my family into it.”

  I grabbed the phone on the wall and dialed the desk. “Can you please send an initiate to my suite?”

  Right away, Sir.

  I hung up and caught her chewing on the side of her nail. “What if it doesn’t work? We are Handfasted and then you can’t fix it?”

  I wrapped her in my arms, drawing her in. “I told you. You will change. You just need a little magic.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  I wasn’t sure if the detail would frighten her or help with her decision. The other option was to draw her into the ritual and let her discover it as we proceeded. “Do you want the details?”

  “I don’t know, do I?”

  “The process is ... intimate. It’s one of the reasons I needed your agreement to something between us.”

  “What sort of intimate?”

  A knock at the side of the elevator broke the building tension. I jogged over and opened it to find a robed initiate on the other side. “Please come in.”

  Chapter Three

  I tracked the initiate’s entrance and fought the urge to bolt through the open door. Raven must have sensed it because he blocked the path with his wide frame and ushered the woman inside.

  “Are you ready?”

  Was I ready? Was I ready to shift for the first time in my life? To truly figure out where I belonged? Yes. Was I ready to tie myself to a virtual stranger for a year, not so much. I was sexy the way he pursued what he wanted, and I envied him his conviction. An old textbook passage flashed through my mind: That pack alphas, only a couple born a decade, sensed their soulmates. Sense them in the air.

  It might be easier if I had the same level of certainty he did.

  But, I’d give this,
and so much more to be able to shift. “I’m ready.”

  The initiate beckoned us both forward and unclasped a satin ribbon from her waist before deftly looping it around our joined hands.

  I barely heard the words as I stared into Raven’s eyes. It was as if my body went into autopilot and I stood on the outside watching it all. I didn’t snap back until the initiate left, Raven and my hands still joined together with white length of ribbon.

  “So what now?” I asked. The question seemed foolish, but valid in the situation.

  He chuckled but sobered quickly. My face must have betrayed the turmoil coursing through me.

  “Look,” he said, cupping my face in his hands, my hand holding the back of his. “I won’t force you. Let me show you what you have to look forward to. If you don’t want me all you have to do is say it.”

  Relief lightened the growing darkness within me. “We had fun.”

  He nodded with a smile that crinkled his eyes. “We did. You like the way I kiss you, the way I touch you.”

  The memory of his teeth on my skin swam through me. “Yes. I do.”

  "But," he supplied.

  "But ... I'm scared."

  He had no idea how hard it was for me to admit something like that, especially to an almost stranger.

  Well, not an almost stranger. I stared down at the ribbon entwining our hands. We were stuck together for a year. I might as well get to know the man.

  "What is it you need to let go?" he pressed further.

  I turned away trying to create distance. The blasted ribbon didn't let me go far enough. It didn't take him long swing around in front to lift my chin forcing me to meet his eyes.

  "Talk to me. As you say, were stuck together for a year."

  I stared into those beautiful eyes and lost my words. Growing up with so many men in the house I learned to become a strong woman. I'd learned to hold my ground and not let anyone push me around. But when it came to men, in the dating-sense I had no idea what I was doing.

  "Maybe if you tell me about yourself?"

  He chuckled. "What you want to know?"

  I shrugged. "Anything. Tell me how old you were when you lost your virginity. Or what your favorite food is."

  The corner of his mouth curled up into a smile. It was becoming look for him.

  "I lost my virginity at 16. And my favorite food is tacos."

  "That's it?"

  "Those were the only questions you gave me."

  "Well, be creative here. We are entirely off script at this point so surprise me, tell me something nobody else knows. Tell me a secret."

  He bit his lip in contemplation. I licked my lips mimicking him, wanting to draw that lip between my own teeth. Lack of knowledge aside I wanted him. I had zero experience with men, with boyfriends, any of it. What kind of guy wants to date the younger sister of three big strong men? Throw in being completely defective at shifting and well... none...that’s who.

  Until Raven.

  The thought crept in unbidden from the tiny wellspring of hope I’d yet to squash with mediocrity and exclusion.

  I glanced back up to meet his eyes boring into me. He’d said something, and I missed it lost in my own head.

  “What did you say?”

  The corner of his lip curled up, and he narrowed his eyes. “You’re the one who threw out this gauntlet, and you weren’t even paying attention.”

  “Sorry, I got distracted.”

  “By me?”

  With so many brothers, one did learn a few things about men. And stroking their ego was something I only did to butter them up. “Absolutely not.”

  “Then what has you so distracted?” he asked, while untying the ribbon binding us.

  “Wait,” I stalled his hand on the satin. “Isn’t that supposed to stay on?”

  “You want to keep it on for an entire year?”

  “No, I just thought it was supposed to stay on overnight.”

  He finished untying and carefully lay the ribbon on the bar countertop before returning to wrap his arms around my waist. “If we kept that on all night I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I have planned.”

  I wrapped my arms up and tentatively delved my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck All the while watching his eyes for any sign of disinterest.

  "You don't have to be afraid of me," he whispered.

  He reached up into his hair and jerked the elastic freeing the heft of it down his back. It fell into my hands, the weight of it surprising me as it slid through my fingers like silk. I grabbed a fist of it before I met his lips with my own.

  He tasted like I imagined a thunderstorm would taste: deep, dark, and with a hint of ozone. His lips met mine as fiercely as I took his I didn't notice he picked me up until his hands were wrapped around my ass.

  I broke the kiss and took a deep breath. "Take me to bed."

  He hiked me up a little to get a better grip on my ass, a saucy grin on his face.

  "Are you asking me to sleep with you?"

  I rolled my eyes and chuckled. "You bastard, just take me to bed." A man of action. He didn't question me again.

  He tossed me on the bed. And I let out a little squeak but the mirth quickly died as his hands reached up to grasp the tie around his throat.

  "It's rude to stare."

  I couldn’t even think of a snarky response as he rocked the knot loose and stripped it from his shirt collar with a thwack that made me jump. He twisted the top button from its noose and continued down the line, his eyes never once leaving me.

  Part of my brain was questioning my good sense. The other half melted as his bare chest came into view.

  He stripped his shirt off his shoulders and my brain skipped a few beats trying to decide where to look next, the smattering of hair that created an arrow straight to his belt buckle or the gold hoops glistening in the overhead lighting stuck through each of his nipples.

  “Do you like those?”

  His voice came from far away and so I nodded, sure that would be enough of an answer as I stared.

  He paused at his belt. “You have to show me something here. Give a man some inspiration.”

  Reality crashed. My turn to remove clothing and pretend I wasn’t naked with a virtual stranger. “Okay, sure.”

  I sat up and lifted my arm to grasp the zipper there. With a yank, and a prayer, I pulled it down and shimmied out of the dress. Memories from my teenage years, before I realized I’d never get a date amongst the pack members, crashed in. Searching the internet for clues on how to be sexy, appealing, anything I could read...and all of it now washed out of my head by the glint of soft lighting on nipple rings.

  I fought the urge to cover myself and pressed my hands into the bed on either side of my hips.

  “You are stunning.”

  I glanced up sharply to meet his eyes, waiting for something...censure, insincerity, but no ... he was genuinely complimenting me.

  I gave him a nod ushering him into unbuckling his belt. As with most shifters he wasn’t wearing any underwear and the second he stripped his suit pants off his feet, along with his shoes, he stood.

  Naked and unabashed. Raven stood before me the same as if he were clothed. It was a shifter thing. Well, a shifter thing for those shifters who spent time amongst each other naked. Not for the rejects. I again fought the urge to cover myself with my hands under his pinning gaze.

  He stepped forward and crouched to catch my hands in his. “Don’t you dare.”

  I swallowed before answering, “dare what?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I can’t always read you but right now...”

  Standing he pulled me with him. Without clothing his presence seemed even bigger, surrounding me in the heat of his skin. He reached behind me to grasp the clasp of my bra and waited. “May I?”

  I gave him a nod, not trusting my voice. He stripped it off my faster than I might have been able. My heart didn’t take a dive until he stooped down and grasped the edges of my panties on either
hip. He stopped and waiting for my ascent again before pulling them down my legs and off my feet gently.

  “So ... what now?” I asked, teasingly. I tried to joke, but my voice wavered revealing my nerves.

  “Tell me you want this. I won’t go further. I will not force you.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Would you help me shift, even if we didn’t?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.

  He rubbed my upper arms in soothing strokes. “The intimacy of it might discomfort you, but yes, I would still help you.”

  I met his eyes. This man had no notion of guile. He simply wanted me and with a deep breath I closed my eyes and took in the situation. There wasn’t a single doubt, while I was nervous to be in a man’s arms for the first time, I wanted him. Every fiber of my body yearned for his touch.

  “I want you. I’m just nervous so you need to take the lead. Guide me through it.”

  His forehead wrinkled, and I smiled at such a human emotion displayed on his face. “Are you...a virgin?”

  “Um...guilty.”

  His face fell slack, he released my upper body, and put distance between us. Had I finally said something that was too much for him to bear? He turned away, and I got a clear view of his perfectly formed ass and the fall of hair down the middle of his back. I almost reached out to him but held myself back. Not sure I wanted to face his rejection after everything we’d gone through to get here.

  “I never imagined...” His voice came out husky.

  I ran a hand tentatively down the length of his spine his hair wrapping between my fingers as they passed.

  He spun and grasped my hand before it reached the bottom and pressed it to his chest. “I never imagined you would be so perfect when I found you.”

  Then he seized me, lifting me up again, one arm clutching my waist, the other a shelf for my ass.

  He kissed me with a fever, like he wanted inside me and his mouth was the fastest route.

  I turned off my brain and sunk into the sensation of his hot tongue parting my lips, demanding entrance. We fell onto the bed, him on his side, me aligned down the front of him, his arms wrapped around me.