by Lisa Daniels
It was all insane, yet at this moment in time, Tia needed him there, inside her, stabbing into her soul. Something about his scent drove her crazy, clouded her brain like a drug, which accumulated from his proximity. She desired him – a vague thought in her head registered that maybe this was some sort of wolfy pheromones triggering a chemical reaction in her brain – but she also discarded that in favor of ascending with him to that place where orgasms happened.
His chest hairs scratched over her breasts, hardening her nipples further. He plunged his mouth onto hers in quick snatches of lip and tongue, seeking the close contact, the warmth, the intimacy – somehow, the lip contact felt more sacred than their cores slotted together.
When she realized that this felt like so much more than a quick, casual screw, it caused a tight, coiling sensation to bundle in her stomach. Her thighs trembled and twitched, her toes curled as he thrust into her faster, his brow sweating in perspiration as he hit the sweet spot. She arched her back and clawed at his, mouth opening in a long moan of pleasure as the orgasm, built up to the max, now began to ripple through.
It didn’t stop after the normal six to eight seconds, either. It kept going, radiating through her, and every limb shuddered from bliss.
Her inner walls clenched around him, and he hissed, before orgasming mere seconds after her, releasing inside her, shivering along with her.
Boneless, she flopped onto the sofa, eyes fixated on the ceiling light, brain floating from the overdose of endorphins.
She felt him leave her, and drop onto her side, adjusting himself into a comfortable position. His arm draped over her front protectively, and he nuzzled into her neck.
Neither of them bothered to speak, both equally stunned but floating from the rush of unexpected happiness.
Temporary happiness.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Tia said, the conviction of her word clogging her lungs. “At least until we’ve had sex for like a million more times. Because that was something.”
He chuckled into her neck, the first real sound of mirth she had ever heard from him. Amber eyes blinked languidly at her. They made her wonder if she could fall deeply in love. She saw the possibility. She felt it.
“Tempting. You feel as good as you look and smell. I am glad at your persistence in keeping me around.”
“I have been known for persistence, yes. Along with a terrible taste in jokes. Like, check this one out. Hear about the girl who lost her left arm and left leg? She’s ‘alright’ now.”
He furrowed his brow, unimpressed. “I am not sure if saying that straight after we have had sex is best timing.”
“It’s the best time,” Tia disagreed. “Because you’re in a good enough mood to listen to it without wanting to bash my skull in.”
He sighed, and buried his head into her shoulder. “Strange human.”
“You love it.” She nudged him affectionately, before exhaling a sigh. “Maybe it was bad timing for us with the sex.”
He began kissing her neck, touching soft, delicate parts that made her spine ripple in pleasure. “Or maybe we both needed to forget.”
Tia squeezed her eyes shut, heart sinking at the truth. “Yes. We did.” She tilted her face to press foreheads together. “After tonight, will I ever see you again?”
Dilated amber eyes met hers with affection. “I do not know.” His voice shook. “Is not because I do not want to. Is because, I might be dead soon. The Lubanovs – they left me a poisoned legacy. Is hard to run from that kind of background without death meeting you someplace. Not that my father and I didn’t try. It just caught up with him. It is gunning for me.”
The cocktail of warmth, happiness and increased feelings of intimacy dulled with the statement, made her happiness lose some of the shine.
“I hope I will see you again. I’m not sure if I want to lose you so soon. And maybe we both need a lot more forgetting.”
“Yes,” he agreed, a gentle smile caressing his lips. “But you have number. And you have me, and I have you for this night. We may not be doing traveling together so soon, but we can travel in spirit.”
They melded their bodies together, stealing warmth from one another’s skins, doing little else other than to stroke each other’s cheeks, and unflinchingly meet eyes. When Tia finally fell asleep, it was naked and in his arms, under the soft snoring that came from his mouth.
Waking up the next day had her stirring in bed, under warm, fresh sheets, with pajamas back on. He had carried her here and placed her clothes on at some point in the night. The idea of such a tender gesture made her heart jump in slight pain.
She didn’t want to lose the man with the amber eyes so soon. Not when they had barely begun to explore the depths of one another, and not when she had just found out about the mechanisms of an underworld, working hand in hand with the normal realm of humans. She recalled his talk about the countries across the world, and his surprise at her lack of exploration. She remembered the images of Bruges on his phone.
Sunlight burst through her window, dappling over her bedcovers. Her eyes alighted on her cellphone, resting on the bedside table, and she stretched over for it, taking it off standby.
One text message showed. She thumbed it open.
Danny: I do not regret meeting you. Sleep well. Wake happy. Be good and safe.
She texted him back, feeling an immense pang of inexplicable loss.
I miss you. How strange. I’ve only known you for one night. Yet there is space here for you.
The reply came back a minute later.
Danny: There is space here, too. We will meet again. Be strong.
Tia hugged the phone to her breast. She hoped so. She really did. She had the world to explore after all.
The End
Arina’s Mate
Shifters of the Bulgarian Bloodline
(Book 2)
Prologue:
Ricten Spirova. Arina remembered the name of the man who’d slaughtered her family. She’d thought the werewolves weren’t so terrible as the locals made out – she even had four friends from some of the surrounding families that used to play with her and the other village children. Luelle, Ordri, Markus and Danny. They were young, curious, and wanted to know what the humans were like, and it was easy for them to be friends, easy to share everything together and live like the children they were supposed to be. Danny and Markus showed off their werewolf forms, though all they could really do was grow claws and sharper teeth, and growl a little bit. They made up games, such as exploring the lakes for rusalkas, or being careful not to talk too loud in the forests, in case the Baba Yaga came, or the vampires tried to suck at their blood.
One day, Ordri stopped coming. She said her family was mad because she wasn’t supposed to play with humans. Then Luelle stopped – she needed to go and marry some Russian werewolf, and burst into tears over it, and made Arina promise to keep writing letters, and Arina did, except the address Luelle was supposed to give never happened, and her poor friend vanished into the bleak wilderness, never to be seen again. Danny and Markus came down to the village one day, wild and frantic, and urged Arina to run away with him. He said the older ones were whipping themselves into a frenzy – they wanted to do bad things to the village, bad things to her father and little brother. They couldn’t do bad things to her mother, who’d been dead for five years.
She wanted to warn her family, saw her father walking her brother along a dirt track – and also saw a huge black werewolf lunge at him, crush him to the ground and rip out his throat. Her brother, Gregor, just stood there in absolute shock as their father bubbled out the last of his breath. The grizzled werewolf then, slowly, deliberately, picked up her six year old brother, laid him onto the ground, and began chewing into his stomach, taking out things that should have been kept inside, with him very much alive, squealing in terror and agony. Other villagers in the small, isolated village ran, screaming down the lanes, chased by blurred, monstrous forms with glowing eyes.
“
I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Danny had cried, his pale brown eyes aghast in horror, and he and Markus ran with Arina, who barely could move her limbs, or register the sight she had just seen.
They ran to the forests, through the lakes. Danny broke into a small house, stole some money, shoved it in her hands and told her to make it as far away as possible. Maybe go to one of the cities, because didn’t she have an older cousin in Plovdiv, a Godfather in Sofia? She could go to them, just not back to the place where she once lived.
Markus gave her the green, transparent stone that used to be on her bedside, and he, Danny and her hugged, and cried.
She cried, and asked for them to come with her. They said they couldn’t. When the bus came, just before she got on it, she asked for the name of the one who had killed her brother and father. Markus whispered it into her ear: Ricten Spirova.
Arina clambered onto the bus and watched Danny and Markus roll out of sight, her hands pressed against the dirty windows.
She didn’t stop crying for a long time afterwards. Sometimes, she mouthed the black werewolf’s name. When she did, it drowned out her tears in place of hatred.
Chapter One
Arina opened up the newspaper on her work desk, cappuccino already there and steaming from the Dolce Gusto machine, and she scoured through the headlines diligently. She didn’t take long breaks at work, and they preferred her to paper-push, rather than move out onto the field, because she had a high kill statistic rate when shooting with her Sig Sauer P226, even though the rest of the department preferred their Glocks. Arina shot with her left hand, so the ambidextrous catch of the Sig suited her just fine. She ran a thumb over her police badge, proud of feeling the spiked shape of it weighted on her clip, knowing that she had earned it throughout her years in America, in the state of North Dakota.
Around her neck, she wore a green, transparent stone set in silver wire, a memory of one of her childhood friends, who had saved her from the chaos of the wolves. She kept it there as a reminder that good and evil co-existed. That things were not black and white, but rather a constant, murky color that people trampled over, insisting on their ways and morals, their paths and their choices. She kept it as the reminder of the things that lurked in the dark – the werewolves, the vampires, the creatures that killed in secret or hid amongst the humans in plain sight.
Finally, Arina’s eyes rested upon a color picture, which she squinted at as she sipped her coffee.
Wanted. Suspect is believed to be responsible for a string of killings across West Virginia, and has last been spotted at a gas station near the border into North Dakota. Citizens are urged to contact their local police if they spot this individual, who is highly dangerous, and likely armed.
Although the face was twenty or so years older than the last time she had seen him, Arina recognized the distinctive eye color and hair of Danniven Lubanov, shown in the picture to be handing money to a proprietor in a gas station. A knot of exasperation settled in her heart. She’d been tracking the progress of Danniven for some time, wondering if he was no longer the boy who had risked his life and standing with the Lubanovs, when hustling her out the village, onto that dusty bus two decades ago. It made her sad. Of course, people assumed that he was just a run of the mill killer, unaware of his status as a werewolf. No doubt the clipping had been placed in by other werewolves, wishing to hunt this rogue member down. She knew the station wasn’t too far off Fort Tyr, probably about an eight-hour drive by car, and entertained the possibility that Danny might be dropping into her neighborhood.
Sighing, she closed up the newspaper, and began flicking through the pile of cases on her desk, dutifully comparing them against the system. That stupid fucking Lubanov, once again sticking his nose into something where he didn’t belong. Maybe he was a killer now. Maybe he always was. But she still remembered him as her friend.
I’d hoped we could all meet again. The five of us. I tried hard to remember that although monsters killed my family, four of them were not monsters. We were just different people. We didn’t choose which family we were born into. We didn’t choose what our parents chose for us.
She absently fiddled with her necklace, remembering Markus. His soft, childish features, his mesmerizing blue eyes, so striking, as if they could see into your soul. Every single one of those four friends had dropped off the face of the earth, and the only one who had emerged after all these years was Danny, who looked as though the whole of America were hunting him.
Imogen walked past Arina’s desk, and dropped a small chocolate bar. “Hey. I’m doing the thing where I bribe all my police officers today with some candy, because I know things have been real slow, lately.” The blonde-haired, brown eyed woman flashed a beatific smile, prompting Arina to pick up the Twix chocolate bar.
“Well, this will work. Are you sure you should be encouraging sugar addiction like this? I thought drugs were bad.”
“Oh, you.” Imogen playfully swatted Arina on the head. “Don’t make my ideas sound bad, Vasilev. Hmm. Vasilev. Did I tell you that sounds like Vaseline? You eastern Europeans and your weird names.”
“Please. Like being called Imogen Annabelle Elizabeth Rutherhood isn’t weird.” Arina grinned at her colleague, opening the chocolate bar and taking a small bite.
Imogen laughed, patted Arina on the shoulder. “I’ve started a new series, FYI. It’s called iZombie. Really good. I recommend it. And you should come over to my house tomorrow so we can watch it, whilst the hubby’s out of town.”
“Sure. If I show you the first ep of what I have. P.S, it’s Vikings.”
“Deal.” They shook hands, and Imogen strode out, her rear swinging slightly from her high heels.
Arina wrapped up her shift seven hours later, and ordered a take-out Indian for home, too lazy to scoop it from the restaurant herself. She drove her tattered blue Volvo back to her apartment, parked in the allocated space by her residential block, and paced up to the entrance, fishing for the front door key.
In the dimming light, she got the shock of her life when she saw a man emerge from behind the side of the building, his hands held up. She immediately reached for her gun, pointed and aimed it, when she recognized the features of the man in the newspaper.
“Arina.” Danniven Lubanov licked his lips nervously, keeping his hands held high. The amber eyes pleaded with her, obviously wondering if the risk of talking to her was one he should have taken.
“Give me one good reason to not shoot you on the spot. Because I’ve been reading a lot of bad news about you lately, Danny-boy.” Arina rolled the last syllables, her gun arm unwavering. She spoke in English, prompting him to do the same.
“I don’t. But I just wanted to say – I smelled you as I was passing through this town. And I wanted to say that I’m meeting up with someone who has been looking for you for a while. Is quite desperate to meet you.”
At these words, Arina’s arm trembled a little. Her heart beat just that tiny bit faster. “Who was looking for me?”
“Markus.” The name made Arina’s heart twinge. “He followed you to America. He tried looking for you in Sofia some years back, heard you moved to North Dakota. Came here. No luck finding you. I’m heading to him now. Hoping for safe passage in Canada.”
Arina Vasilev stared at Danny Lubanov for a long time, comparing him from the suspected killer in the paper, and the boy she had once known, who had hugged her and cried, who once roamed with her in the far-off lakes of her former home. “Were any of the kills werewolves?”
“Some. Others, no. My father, I did what he said. I was weak. He is dead, now, though. There are no more kills.” A lump rose in Danny’s throat. His handsome features drooped. “But is too late to explain the error. Too late for those who did die.”
Reason warred with desire. It was true that Danny had deliberately sought her out, despite the risk of being caught, of not knowing what she did. If he had sought her out, it at least meant that he didn’t intend to kill her. It was also true that he had
saved her life once upon a time. “What happened to you, Danniven?”
“Everything,” he said simply. “But nothing, compared to you. I am… I’m glad you’re alive. Well.” He smiled, so sadly, that it took Arina’s breath away. She lowered her gun arm, enough so that an opportunist might leap for her. Danny did not, but lowered his hands as well. “All I ask is that you, my old friend, find the time to see Markus. I give you his number, I ask you to phone him. It has been his dream to find you again.”
Arina tucked her Sig Sauer back into its holster. “You’re going to see him now?”
Danny nodded. “Yes. He is two hours by car, though I planned to run it.”
Arina sighed. She knew what she was planning was possibly stupid and insane, but the idea of seeing Markus, of knowing he had been looking for her after all these years, sent a longing, deep in her bones. She had been looking for him as well. All of them. Right now, Danny Lubanov looked nothing less than the boy she had known, although wearier, haggard from the chase and of living on the streets.
“I’ve got the day off tomorrow. I can drive you. If you show me the way.”
The apprehension on Danny’s face turned into slow delight. He stepped closer to Arina. He opened his arms delicately, and moved close enough to embrace. “Can I?”
She nodded. He wrapped her in his arms. “Arina. My friend. I missed you.”
Arina’s cheeks flushed. “I missed you, too. I was so angry and fucking scared though, seeing all the news and your stupid, ugly face in the shots.”
“Is scary for me, too,” he said, inducing a laugh.
She asked for Danny to wait in her living room, and unlocked two doors, to dash, shower and change into casual clothes, letting her dark hair out, and placing a spray of Ralph Lauren perfume on her neck, scalp and wrists.