by Lisa Daniels
Milev's face contorted in slight anxiety. “I'm not a great fan of being shot at.”
“Neither am I. Strangely, I'm okay with holding the gun, though,” Isabelle said, a smirk tugging on her lips. He rolled his eyes, but smiled back.
People shrieked in a language Isabelle didn't understand, followed by a clipped accent that yelled, “No more resistance! Is bad. We are mad at you!”
Someone screamed at the speaker to go to hell, which was followed by a gunshot.
“Danniven,” someone grunted. “This isn't all of them. We're missing, like, twelve.”
“The clan is seventeen, eighteen strong, yes?”
“Yes, sir. There's only six here.”
Another gunshot. “I think you mean two.”
“Oh, wow,” Isabelle said.
“This is werewolf upon werewolf violence we're listening to right now,” Milev said. Then, winking, he yelled, “Danniven Lubanov! It's Milev Spirova! I'm stuck in the basement with a human!”
A brief silence followed his statement. “Milev! Is you and human okay?”
“No, it's terrible. The human is so mean.”
A low chuckle. “Humans are mean, yes.”
Their footsteps approached the basement, at the same time that Isabelle sprung the lock, and swung the door open to see four men with gleaming, supernatural eyes, wielding guns. Danniven Lubanov sported amber eyes, and clearly headed the group.
“Hello, Milev,” he said. “Not too late?”
“Could be worse,” Milev replied. He placed a friendly arm on Isabelle's shoulders. “This badass human killed about seven of them by herself. So you're actually missing around five.”
Danniven nodded admiringly at Isabelle. “Excellent. We tell Markus what is happening. And I text girlfriend to say I am alive, not dead.”
“He has a human girlfriend,” Milev added helpfully. Isabelle suspected an ulterior motive for him saying this, and scrunched her lips in a disapproving frown.
“Is it just me,” one of the werewolves said, with a distinctive Toronto-Canadian accent, “or were you two in the process of rescuing yourselves?” He indicated Isabelle's hairpin and the open door.
“We were. She's good with locks. We were going to be all stealthy and sneak out whilst they were watching television.”
“I don't understand,” Isabelle said, halting the banter, “what these werewolves hoped to gain from taking over your... alpha's property? There must be more than something like that to usurp him.”
“Yes,” Danniven said. “But they intended to kill alpha himself. Alpha of course is not here. He is in Bulgaria.”
“Don't you have, like, a second or third in command when this shit happens?”
“Yes,” Milev said. “But Markus's clan here is still new. He hasn't established a full chain of order yet. It will likely be his next job when he gets back. Promote loyal clans and start his own “noble” family thing.”
The sounds of a scuffle interrupted their statement, along with the revving of a car engine outside.
Danniven made a tsk noise, pinching the spot between his eyebrows. “Markus will be in my debt for once.” He examined Isabelle. “Are you cop?”
“Hunter,” Milev said for her. Isabelle watched the keen interest in Danniven's expression dim.
“Oh.”
“Need help!” Someone barked from the other room, and Danniven, with his three Canadian allies, bounded off, obviously to deal with the remaining invaders on the property. Isabelle's heart thumped faster. She desperately wanted her weapons located, to have them snug in her hand, so she would feel powerful amongst a group of supernatural beings.
Then again, if she happened to be Milev or Danniven, she wouldn't exactly trust a hunter with a weapon. Not when they could turn it upon a temporary ally.
Again, the betrayal of her so-called friends stuck in her head.
“Come on,” Milev urged, pressing his palm into her back. It left a burn mark there, where his warmth contacted, and it wasn't entirely unpleasant. She allowed herself to be pushed on, heard two more gunshots, and saw a collection of werewolf bodies on the living room of the farmhouse, surrounded by Danniven's four Canadian werewolves, and two Bulgarian ones. Blood dribbled onto the green carpet of a living room littered with trash, empty cans and tins, and Isabelle barely had time to fully register the sight of the deceased before Milev tried ushering her upstairs.
“Wait.” Isabelle held up a hand, and reached for one of the dead's sidearms. “These will be vanadium-enhanced, right?”
A tiny flicker of fear slithered over Milev's face, before it disappeared. For some reason, the fear disappointed Isabelle.
“Yes. Come on, let's go...”
But before they had a chance to react, a spray of machine gun fire hammered through the walls. Screams and howls wrought the air as drywall dust spat into the air and swirled, and Isabelle screeched as Milev barrelled into her. She collapsed in a heap, his body crushing hers, and she yelled, trying to push him off, even as more gunfire wrecked the surroundings around them.
She felt his body jerk once, twice, then fall even harder on hers, and in her panic, she almost tried aiming the gun into him, but hesitated at the last second. He's been hit?
“Three down!” Danniven hollered out. “Martin, help Arthur! Leave Tom, he's dead. Get him!” More gunfire spurted out, and Isabelle finally succeeded in peeling Milev off her. Her heart sank horridly when she saw two blossoming bullet wounds in his back.
A sound clunked beyond the room. Caution overrode her impulse to shake and shout the werewolf's name. She aimed her gun, waited, and a black muzzled werewolf stepped into the room.
The gun jerked in her hand as she fired at the wolf, then through the wall, hearing him collapse. The machine gun he'd been holding skid and thudded into the ajar door.
Breathing fast, she waited for anything else. Then, sure she wasn't about to suffer any extra intrusions, she turned her attention to Milev.
“Milev? Milev?”
“Hey,” the werewolf croaked. “I never did... ask your... name.”
“Isabelle.”
“That's... pretty.” He wheezed, his eyelids beginning to flutter shut from the shock of pain.
She slapped his face, forcing him back into consciousness. “Stay with me! Don't go to sleep!” She then yelled, “Help! Help! Milev is hurt!”
A moment later, Danniven entered the room, bleeding from the cheek, and gasped when he saw the wounds in Milev. “Ne! We need to pull those out...”
Two more werewolves bundled into the room, and Isabelle could only watch in numb shock as they peeled Milev off her, rushing him to the kitchen table for a hasty operation.
A werewolf had just jumped in the way and saved her. Somewhere, she struggled to comprehend the fact.
Why had he saved her? He owed her nothing. She owed him nothing.
He's a werewolf. He's supposed to be bad. She bit her lip. And I didn't tell him my name all this time.
“Are you any good with bullet wounds?” Danniven called, stepping into the room with her, as she stared blankly at the floor. “Hello?”
Presently, Isabelle snapped back into focus. “Uh. Yes. Yes, I can help.”
“Well, come on! Save your boyfriend.”
“He's not...” she protested weakly, getting up to follow Danniven into the kitchen.
He's not my enemy. The revelation crashed into her.
She didn't want to see him die. She didn't want to lose that stupid, grinning face, that unflappable manner. Not when he had only just learned her name.
Not when he had, for some absurd reason, proposed to her a tentative date. After the mess had cleared itself up, of course. If they survived.
Her world unraveled around her, and she wasn't one hundred percent sure that was a bad thing.
Chapter Four
Even though Isabelle had plenty of opportunities to return back to her home, to leave the farmhouse which had inadvertently turned into a clan versus cla
n battlefield – she hadn't.
Danniven, or Danny Lubanov, took over the farmhouse, helping to construct it into decent shape again with the rest of his clan. They patched up holes in the wall, bought a new carpet, and discreetly disposed of the bodies. Someone in the future was definitely going to find the plot of land with the buried werewolves, and think that they had stumbled onto a serial killer's graveyard.
In the meanwhile, Isabelle stayed by Milev's side. She had helped pull out the bullets from his body, and cleaned up his wounds, replacing the bandages only twice, as his accelerated healing compensated for the ugly injuries.
He didn't owe her anything. But she owed him, she suspected, her life.
Had he not dived on her like that, those two bullets might have sprayed into her. And she didn't have werewolf resilience. She would have fallen like a rag doll onto the ground, and bled out in moments.
Without the beard and the rest of his face fuzz, she saw his jawline and cheeks in their refined, elegant state, and admired his face, the sculpted beauty of it. Under the sheets lay a muscular, tall body with a tuft of golden chest hair growing over his pecs, and he slept quite peacefully.
Isabelle watched him, all sorts of confusing emotions floating through her body at the moment. Trying to find her place and sense of purpose in the world floated all awry.
She'd had some time to consider, and observe the mannerisms of the werewolves she suddenly found herself playing house with, due to her refusal to leave Milev's side until he had made a full recovery.
The meeting with the hunters, with Ben, Kevin, Martha, and all the others with their tales of pain, hatred and rage, faded into the distance. She saw poison in their words, which she once so blindly lapped up.
Maybe there were a lot of horrible, cruel werewolves. No more so than humans.
Danny Lubanov kept her up-to-date briefly on what was going on with his alpha abroad, when he noticed her asking questions, specifically about the human woman who had mated with said alpha.
He also told her that it was perfectly safe for a werewolf to be with a human, provided they didn't bite you in feral form.
“This is my human,” he had said, showing her a picture of a woman called Tia. They had sat around the kitchen table together, enjoying a generous helping of lasagna. Milev still wasn't well enough to move, but he had a plate brought up to him with the delicious meal. “She will come tomorrow to see me. She has already landed and is traveling to a hotel. She will move with me to Canada, or be near the northern border of North Dakota. We want a future together.” He acted so proud of this, of showing off Tia to her on his phone. When she asked about Arina, Danniven happily told her about his childhood – less enthusiastically about the massacre of her family.
“We saved her, but lost track of her for many years. Markus never stopped looking. He loved her all that time. Even from such a young age.” A heavy sadness weighed in Danniven's eyes, enhancing the shadows beneath them. The dark-haired werewolf with the amber eyes seemed to hold a mountain of regret, and Isabelle sensed it prudent to not dig too far into whatever memories haunted him.
“Thank you for telling me this,” she said, playing with her fork on the near-empty plate, unsure of how else to express herself.
“No problem. One note. I think maybe you should try date with Milev, when he's better. Since he saved your life and all.”
She laughed. “Am I that obvious?”
Danny nodded. “Very. But it's okay. You have questions. Questions you've not always thought about before.”
She sighed, knowing the truth in the werewolf's statement.
And now, she sat by Milev's side again, watching him, and thinking.
She hadn't bothered trying to contact her hunter friends. They likely thought her dead at this point – not that she could blame them.
They had let her down, and it was a damn werewolf who made up for that disappointment.
A werewolf who stole her attention, her time, her thoughts. He is magical, she considered wryly. And he's somehow taken up a lot of space in my head.
Was this attraction she felt? Did she actually like him?
Maybe. Maybe she did like him. And maybe it was more than that.
Something about him appealed to her at a base level. The primal, residual feeling he invoked with his scent kept drawing her back to him, though she knew it took more than a pleasant smell to keep her lingering by his bedside. Somehow, over the course of the week she'd been stuck in this house with him, tending to his injuries, keeping him company during his waking hours, Milev Spirova had slunk into her soul, and refused to let go.
He did sort of save my life at the risk of his own. That's one sure way to sneak a little closer to a woman's heart.
She watched him with a fond smile, and imagined what it might be like dating him. They likely couldn't rush into it. She still needed some time to process her changing heart, to feel comfortable in his presence, and to not give in to spikes of fear every time she thought about the beast within.
Milev's eyes fluttered open, and he saw Isabelle sitting at his side. He gave a lazy smile, followed by a yawn.
“Hello, beauty. Still around, I see.”
“I'm waiting for your lame ass to get better,” Isabelle replied, knotting her fingers in strands of dark blonde hair, strangely shy now that he had awakened. He adjusted the mauve bed covers so he could face her better.
“Shouldn't be too long. So, perfect chance to say this now. Remember my bad timing with my words when you were trying to get us out of the basement?”
Isabelle nodded, caterpillars wriggling in her stomach. “Oh, yes.”
“Will you be interested in a date, then? Because I like waking up and seeing you here. Makes me all warm and gooey inside.” He stroked the underside of her chin. She blinked, and shivered, before pretending to consider his proposal. Her mind preferred drifting elsewhere, to imagining his fingers touching her in other places, running over her bare skin.
“I suppose. I might not be completely opposed to the idea. Just because you saved my life and all.”
“Am I not attractive, then?” He shifted himself closer, so that his chest was parallel with her knees. “Is it because I don't have a beard anymore?”
Isabelle closed her eyes and sighed, before saying between clenched teeth, “You're attractive. Happy?” Truthfully, she found him too attractive. Something insisted on doing an awkward dance in her stomach, leaving her with a growing pool of arousal between her thighs.
He opened his mouth in a triumphant smirk, eyes dilating. “Oh, yes. Very much so.”
His hand slid into hers, and the gesture made her start in surprise, before she examined his warm, large hand in fascination. She knew how much strength that arm contained, and yet he rested his palm ever so tenderly on hers.
Isabelle's past experience with men amounted to a pitiful few excursions, and one night of humiliation and shame.
This is either the stupidest thing I can ever do, or the bravest.
Isabelle shifted his hand up to kiss him on his knuckles, heart twitching at her audacity. The golden shimmer of his eyes illuminated the space between them, and a low growl formed in his throat.
“You smell good,” he said, though his voice sounded strained. “Like summer. And maybe pineapple.”
“What?” She stared at him, and laughed. “If you say so.” She brought her nose to his arm, and inhaled deeply, trying to discern his scent.
“I don't know how to describe you. You're kind of... fruity?”
“Like a mango, I hear,” he replied, grinning.
“I see.”
The tension in the air became palpable, tight as ropes. Those pheromones were really starting to influence Isabelle's mind and body, and she gasped when he brought her hand to his chest, so she could feel his beating organ inside. His heart beat rapidly, almost as fast as a hummingbird's wings.
“You know, I have been recovering quite well,” he said. “So I recommend you leave now. Becau
se I want to do all sorts of things to you...”
Uh oh. Isabelle's mind temporarily shut down. She warred between rationality and desire. She wanted to pace things. Go on a date.
She also wanted to go past the point of no return.
She let go of his hand, and with a heavy sigh, said, “Let's at least get one date out of the way first.”
Disappointment flashed in his eyes, though he gathered himself together fast. “Of course. We might be rushing things otherwise.”
I feel like I'm already regretting this decision, Isabelle thought sourly to herself.
Chapter Five
The door slammed behind. Milev followed Isabelle to the bed, where they proceeded to engage in a lively wrestling match on the covers.
One date later, and they had already both reached breaking point. Isabelle knew she needed to go home at one point, to let everyone discover that she lived, along with the inevitable questions that would pop up. She first wanted to enjoy every moment she had gained with Milev.
Going to the restaurant had been so awkward, because they spent most of the time staring at one another, making excuses to touch one another's bodies, and it took every ounce of control for her to not just ravage him in the restaurant, right in front of everyone.
“I'm glad we waited,” he panted against her neck, in the middle of removing her bra and then working on her lower half. “Though I admit I might have been a little sad... to not have you earlier.”
“Oh, I was kicking myself,” Isabelle assured him. He sniffed her blonde, vibrant hair, running his hands over her soft, pale skin, golden eyes hazed in lust. Once those kind of eyes terrified her, revealing the person she saw with them as a werewolf, a beast. Now she loved the shine, the way they dedicated themselves to her, and she kissed each eyelid, before descending to his lips and grasping them long and hard, tugging the flesh slightly away from his teeth.
Milev helped her out of the last of her clothing, and pushed off his clothing as well, kissing her during short pauses, wanting to keep the close contact, to feel her against him.
Jolts of arousal crackled between them, supercharging the atmosphere. The sheets scratched over their naked bodies as they rolled, her briefly on top of him, then Milev taking back control, now sucking at her neck, leaving a sore, delicious feeling there that would well into love bites later.