Casting a glance around the small office, I put the photo album back in the drawer and kicked it closed. I sat heavily on the end of the couch with Raoul’s scent puffing up at me as I did so. I leaned back so that my head rested against the back of the soft, worn sofa. Running my hands over it, I instantly became lost in a memory, one that refused to leave as easily as it had come.
It had been in this very room, oddly enough. The very first time that Raoul and I had made love. My skin flushed hot with the memory of his hands on my body. I had been an eager virgin. Young but wise beyond my years after surviving a wolf attack. He had been the man of my dreams, the one who had saved me in so many ways.
I had been in the den here, crying after an especially traumatic night. A fellow wolf had tried to take advantage of me, and Raoul had kicked the shit out of him. He’d found me in tears on this very same couch and pulled me into his arms, pressing moist kisses to my temple, cheeks and eventually my lips.
The memory ensnared me until it was as real as it had once been. Raoul drew my face to his with a warm touch, and I melted, hungry for what he offered. Our lips met, and my heart raced in disbelief. I had spent so many nights imagining this moment and all of a sudden, it was happening.
He had never been one to take it slow. Once I responded to Raoul, kissing him back, he’d been quick to take it a step further. Pressing me into the back of the sofa, his long black hair fell around my face, and his scent was all I could smell. Intoxicating and overwhelming, I was flooded with heat between my legs as he buried his face in my hair and nipped at my neck.
I reached to pull him closer, needing to feel him against every part of me. He growled low in his throat, and my wolf leaped in response. It was both frightening and awe-inspiring. I gasped when he bit me harder, a shot of pleasure going straight to my groin.
His silky, soft, ebony hair trailed over my skin as he kissed his way down my body. “Are you ready, Alexa?” His voice was powerful, touching me in the pit of my stomach so that I had the urge to squirm.
I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come so I reached for him instead, my clawed fingers creating red scratches on his forearms. He leaned down and I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding tight as he claimed me.
A low snarl deep in his throat caused my heart to surge with adrenaline. The sound was chilling in its husky maleness. I stared up at him with a mixture of wonder and awe in my eyes. I could feel the adoration spill out of me as I looked at him. He was my Alpha wolf, and I had given myself to him, no regrets.
With the curtain of hair shadowing his face, Raoul spoke softly. “Are you ok? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
The sincerity in his eyes had been heart stopping. If only it had been real.
As I reclined on the very same couch, lost in the past, those words echoed in my head. Yes, you did hurt me, Raoul, I thought. If only it had been physically instead of emotionally. But, I have to forgive you, or I will never be able to move on.
The overwhelming urge to cry struck me, and it was more than I could take. The tears spilled down my cheeks like a waterfall. A sob broke the silence around me, and I felt ashamed because a part of me would have given anything to relive that night. The pain that Raoul had caused me back then ran too deep, I couldn’t completely let it go. Yet, I knew that I had to.
I practically leaped off the couch, feeling like it had burned me. The strangest sensation struck me, the feeling that I wasn’t alone. A chill stole down my spine, and I shivered. I didn’t like the idea that something could be there with me, something like … Raoul? I wasn’t keen on ghosts. I really wanted nothing to do with them. Despite everything that had transpired with Raoul, I hoped that he would have gone on to something better than that.
Feeling uncomfortable, I left the den and descended the stairs near the kitchen, to the living room below. I turned the TV on and let it play quietly while I curled up in an old easy chair in the corner. I didn’t want to leave the house, and that was both comforting and frightening.
* * * *
I didn’t know that I was dreaming. All I knew was that Harley had me pinned beneath him, and I was struggling to fight him off. He wanted to bite me, to draw my blood deep into him while I fought him. I knew that, and I knew that I had to stop it from happening.
This wasn’t about him trying to kill me. His intentions were darker than that. Whatever it was that he intended, it was worse than death. It hit me all at once. I knew what he wanted from me. He wanted to claim me so that Arys never could: the blood bond, the wicked kiss. I couldn’t let it happen.
The dream broke into fragments and as I fought him, it all began to fade away, as fast as it had come. I woke with a scream on my lips, staring into the worried blue eyes of my dark vampire.
Arys took a step back, waiting for me to come to my senses. I gasped and blinked at him, uncertain if I was really awake or still dreaming. When I focused in on the rest of Raoul’s living room surrounding me, I knew I was awake.
“Arys?”
He scowled in response to the inflection in my voice. “What happened to not leaving the door unlocked? We’ve been over this. Do you have a death wish, Alexa?”
“How did you know I was here? What time is it?” I shook my head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs from my brain. I felt disoriented and confused.
It was still dark beyond the windows, but there was a shimmer to the air, invisible to human eyes, which indicated dawn’s approach.
Arys watched me closely, and I felt scrutinized under his heavy gaze. Lifting an eyebrow in question, I shot him an irritated glare. He crossed his arms and cocked his hip in a way that was both sexy and told me that I was being analyzed.
“I’m surprised that you have to ask.” He glanced around before answering me. I had the strangest feeling that he was nervous. “I could feel you. Your pain … it drew me. I had to come.”
Staring into his eyes, I saw the truth there and with it, love? No. I had to be imagining the emotion swimming in the abyss of his gaze. I was reminded then of two things: Harley stating that Arys must truly love me, and another time in this house when Arys had tuned into my pain without laying eyes on me.
My dream came rushing back to me, and I was suddenly much more alert. “Arys, I dreamt about Harley. He was trying to blood bond me.” My eyes closed as I saw the image again, Harley’s fangs flashing in the light as he used his weight and power to hold me.
Arys’s expression grew dark. “He wouldn’t dare.” His fingers clenched into fists, and I grew warm from the heat of his anger. There was something in his anxious manner that betrayed his words.
“You know he would.” I reached out to him, needing to feel his cool skin, his power mingling with mine. “He’s not going to let me have you.”
Arys grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. His arms went around my waist, pressing me against him. I looked up at him, and he bent his head to capture my lips with his in a breath-stealing kiss. I was sucked into the magnetic draw, falling into him with no resistance. The power we shared sought to control us, and I wanted to allow it. After the torrent of emotions I’d already dealt with tonight, I wasn’t afraid to let the power lead us. I wanted to feel the freedom and release that only came with surrender.
He paused, despite my insistence. Looking down into my eyes, he placed a hand beneath my chin and forced me to look deeper into him. My heart skipped a beat when he whispered, “You already have me.”
Unmistakable emotion filled his eyes. Try as I might to deny it, something was there, something more than I had ever expected from my vampire lover. It frightened me; it truly did, even as it excited me. I already held Shaz’s heart in my hands, precariously at that. Could I honestly say that I didn’t love Arys, in some way?
I don’t give myself to any man without reason. Perhaps the power had joined us, but it wasn’t what kept me coming back. Not entirely. Was it possible to be in love with two men, albeit very different ones? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was what I felt wh
en I was with each of them.
It wasn’t the same. What Arys brought out of me was unlike anything I had felt with Shaz and vice versa. They each held a part of me that was all their own.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I admitted, my lips brushing his as I spoke. I paused to nibble the silver ring in his pouty lower lip. He made a sound that was a combination of a sigh and groan. “I don’t know how to love you.”
Arys ran a strong hand through my hair, balling a handful in his fist. The extremely possessive gesture spoke to the wolf in me. “You don’t know how to admit it.” The room felt alive with energy as our power danced around us.
He was right. I hated when he was right. His firm hold kept me still as he dipped his tongue into my mouth. He pressed harder against me. When his fangs grazed my throat, I gasped, and the adrenaline blasted through me.
“My beautiful wolf, you don’t even know what it is you mean to me.” Arys’s soft murmur was soothing.
The sharp points of his fangs came to rest lightly over my jugular vein, and I could feel the sudden urge to kill rise up in him. He would never do it though. I trusted him completely, only realizing now how deep that trust went. Every time we were in a moment like this, I allowed him the choice to take my life. Dear God, I did love him. How else could I willingly do something so bold and possibly so stupid?
“Then tell me,” I replied, needing to hear now more than ever what I meant to him. “Tell me what I mean to you, Arys. I need to hear you say it.”
I didn’t miss his hesitation. Lifting his head to look at me, I was shocked to see that his eyes had gone all wolf, the whites’ now solid blue. The hand that held my hair loosened but didn’t let go. We faced one another with an open, raw emotion that made me feel uncomfortable and exposed.
Arys gently touched the side of my face, stroking it with an affection that stole my breath. His eyes went to my throat, and he ran his tongue sensually over his fangs.
“Alexa, I have never been more alive in all these years than I am right now, with you.” He paused, second-guessing himself, and I turned my face to plant an encouraging kiss in the palm of his hand. “You are the only light in my dark world. All I see is you.”
I closed my eyes, the emotion overcoming me in its immensity. His next words came low, barely a whisper. Yet, I heard them as clearly as if they’d been shouted at me.
“I love you. You have given back to me everything I thought I’d lost forever.” His voice carried a note of surrender. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, hope evident in his expression.
“How you feel, Arys, it isn’t one sided.” I placed my hand over his, drawing it to my chest where my heart beat steadily.
“Don’t say it,” he said, placing a finger over my lips. “You love the white wolf.”
Knocking his finger away, I rose up on tiptoes to better look him in the eyes. “I do. And, he has his own place within me. As do you.”
He wanted to believe me, but Arys didn’t know how to be loved any better than I had just a few months ago. I understood how hard it was to trust fully. I’d been there. I still was.
“I’ll never let Harley get his hands on you. I will kill him before he can do anything to separate us.” Arys kissed me then, a hard bruising kiss that spoke of his need for solace. His desperation was evident by the pained energy that rolled off him.
“He wants to bond me, Arys,” I managed to get out between fevered kisses. “I would rather be dead than be bound to him.”
“It’s never going to happen. Trust me.” Arys gestured to the window where the darkness was thinning fast. “I’m not going to make it home. That means you have to stay here with me all day.”
That sounded like a great way to spend the day to me. I wasn’t ready to leave him yet. “Ok, we can take some blankets downstairs to the basement. It’s furnished.” A thought struck me, and I added, “I have to give Shaz a call though. He’s going to be looking for me.”
I expected a grimace or dirty look of some kind from Arys then, but his expression remained neutral. That raised my suspicions, and I was suddenly dying to ask him about his little hunting excursion with Shaz.
“Alright, you go call him. I’ll get us set up downstairs.” He trailed a hand over my back and down my behind, sending a shiver through me.
As Arys rummaged in a hall closet for blankets and pillows, I called Shaz. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, and I got his voicemail, as I’d expected. I left a quick message telling him where I was and not to worry about me. I was almost relieved that I could prolong having to face Kylarai in the light of day. I dreaded that conversation.
I gathered myself, prepared to take on Arys and, hopefully, get more out of him than I had from Shaz. Was my curiosity unnatural? Maybe, but it was driving me nuts to know they had shared an intimate moment, hunted and killed together, and I didn’t know any of the details. Arys was more likely to share things that Shaz would gloss over. And, I had all day to get it out of him.
Chapter Thirteen
I stared uncertainly at my reflection in the full-length mirror on my closet door. The Little Red Riding Hood costume did wonders for my physique. Unfortunately, it also nagged at my insecurities. I didn’t mind showing a little skin, but I usually had a higher clothing-to-skin ratio than this.
My cleavage was more than impressive in the black, strapless corset dress. The red lace trim grazed the top of my thigh high fishnet stockings in a barely there way. I decided to pair the costume up with leather knee-high boots that had killer five-inch heels, sharp enough to take out an eye.
My few accessories included silver bracelets that jingled when I moved and a black ribbon tied like a choker around my neck. The little red hooded cape was my final accessory. Kylarai assured me that it wasn’t too short from where she sat on my bed, watching me do my makeup. I’d gone a little heavier than usual on the dark eyeliner and, after hesitating, had even added the red lipstick Jez had insisted on when I bought the outfit.
Things hadn’t been as awkward with Kylarai as I’d expected. I had said a prayer of thanks when I arrived home to find that she was there alone. We hadn’t said much about the fight between Julian and Shaz. Shaz was Alpha, and there wasn’t much more to be said about that.
I was dying to see him. After getting virtually nothing out of Arys, I was frustrated and ready for an evening out. All Arys had been willing to share was that he and Shaz had formed an unspoken understanding and that I would be wise to stop picking at it. Well … fine then.
I so rarely got the chance to enjoy some cheap entertainment. I had also come home with a ton of ideas and plans for redecorating Raoul’s house. It was still hard to think of it as mine. That would come with time.
I’d enjoyed being there, more than I’d thought I would. I had expected to feel out of place in the house filled with both good and bad memories. Instead I had felt calm and at peace. Strange but true.
I turned to face Kylarai, loving my height in the high-heeled boots. She was dressed as the green fairy, better known to some as the absinthe fairy. Clad in a long, forest green cocktail dress with a slit from floor to hip and the cutest sparkly green wings, she looked like she’d just stepped out of a fantasy novel. Green eyeliner would never have looked so perfect on me. Her grey eyes were dazzling.
“Should I leave my hair down or put it up?” I asked, ignoring the part of me that felt guilty as soon as I met her eyes. Some combination of Julian’s loss and the kiss I’d shared with Kale nagged at me.
“Leave it down but use some mousse and blow dry it upside down to give it that wild look with lots of volume,” she said. “That would look sexy.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean trashy?” I laughed and scrutinized my appearance one last time before ransacking the bathroom for mousse.
“You look amazing. Now stop fussing. The trick-or-treaters will be coming soon.” She slid off my bed and smoothed her skirt down. “They’re going to be so cute, all dressed up.”
I couldn’t
help but smile in response to her enthusiasm. She genuinely adored the innocence of children.
“Alright, just let me find my blow dryer, and I’ll be right out.”
The doorbell rang then, and a chorus of small voices called out, “Trick or treat!” Kylarai let out a little squeal and ran for the door. Her inner child really came out during holidays of any kind.
After blasting my hair with the blow dryer to increase the volume, I arranged the pieces of red and blonde around my face and called it done. I left my bedroom before I picked apart my costume any further.
In the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of red wine. The excited chatter of kids reached me along with Ky’s exclamations. After savoring a long sip, I joined her at the front door. She waved goodbye as the small group exited the yard.
Groups of kids could be seen down the street heading this way. Ky’s genuine joy made me wonder if she wished she’d had kids of her own. I wanted to ask, but now wasn’t the time.
Children weren’t something that I thought about much. Since the attack as a teen, it was something I’d come into adulthood accepting wasn’t for me.
“Oh Alexa, look at the little princess!” Kylarai had the door open before the next group of kids had even made it up the walk. “You guys look awesome!”
My eyes widened when I noticed the size of the handfuls of candy she was giving out. The big smiles on the painted faces peering at her with wonder warmed my heart in places that felt foreign to those cozy feelings. I instinctually gravitated closer to the doorway.
A princess, two superheroes and a ghost all called out a happy, “Thank you!” Their mom stood at the end of the walk waiting for them, and I raised a hand in greeting. I couldn’t help but feel deceitful. These people had no idea they were sending their kids to the door of two vicious killers.
By the time we’d had twenty-seven kids come to the door, I was finished my first glass of wine. Not intending to go overboard but needing to take the edge off, I poured another smooth glass of cabaret. I think I was a little nervous about walking into a party where both Shaz and Arys would be. If there was any fighting tonight, I was leaving.
Trina M. Lee Page 46