by Elle Thorne
The three men in front of Range took a step back.
“I’ve never done anything to endanger us—”
“Until now,” Asa interjected.
“I still haven’t.” Range reached his handout and took Eira’s, then tugged her forward and closer to him. “You don’t know the first thing about her.”
Blond Beard cleared his throat. “We know she’s the one a client wanted found. We know—”
Range raised his hand. “You don’t know shit, Davin.” Then he looked at the other two. “None of you know anything about her. About why I brought her here.”
“Then why don’t you fill us in?” the one with the dark beard said.
Process of elimination, he had to be Jason, Eira figured.
“How about if we introduce ourselves and act civil for a shot?” Range’s smile was forced and tight.
Asa nodded, then turned to Eira. “Asa Wulfsen, Range’s brother.” He waved his arms toward the men next to him. “Davin and Jason,” he growled out.
Feeling much like she was talking around a mouth of sawdust, Eira managed a reply. “Nice to meet you.” Though she’d rather have met a slew of gang members in a dark alley.
“Let’s go inside,” Range tugged her hand, pulling her around his brothers.
One of them, she couldn’t have said which because she wasn’t watching, made a grunting sound as if not believing Range was adding insult to injury by taking her inside their home.
“Mind if we have a moment?” Asa’s voice came from behind them.
“Sure, as soon as I get Eira settled, show her the restroom.”
Another sound from behind them, a louder grunt. Clearly, the brothers didn’t approve of that either.
At that moment, Eira wondered if her decision to come with this man had been wise. Obviously, there was a dynamic in place, and she shouldn’t be here.
And then, Range’s fingers squeezed hers, and the energy that emanated from him was a salve that soothed her anxiety.
She followed him up the stairs of the porch and into the building. He closed the door firmly behind them, leaving his brothers in the yard where they hadn’t moved an inch. He led her through a home that was definitely decorated by men with its dark colors and austere simplicity. Down into a sunken living area, then up a set of four steps into a room that reminded her of a cave.
Dark blue curtains and dark wood furniture ensconced a king-sized bed garnished with a tan and navy comforter set.
“Your room?” she asked.
“Yours now, too. If you want it. I can stay in the game room. It’s got a pull-out sofa.”
Her hand still in his, she pulled him closer. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah.” He gave her that half-smile she’d come to be so fond of. “I’m sure about sleeping on a pull-out sofa.”
She yanked on his hand even harder. “I mean about my being here.”
“Eira.” His voice was husky. The same husky that made her melt, inside and out. “I’m not so good with words, but this is where you need to be. Where I need you to be. With me.”
Eira swallowed the lump of emotion that had formed over his words. She couldn’t have explained where the feelings she carried for him came from. They were sudden, they were intense, and she could tell they were forever. There was something inexplicable about what was between them. But still… “You can’t reject your brothers for me.”
“I’m not. Not anymore than you rejected your sisters.”
“I didn’t—”
He placed his lips on hers, stopping her midsentence. He pulled back. “I’m not saying you did. I’m saying that we are doing what’s right for us. And it might stretch those that care for us outside of their comfort zones, but we don’t intend them harm.” His gaze locked with hers. “Do we?”
“Of course not.” She knew he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her sisterhood deliberately any more than she would.
“But I won’t let them stand between us. There has to be a way to make it work.”
“Perhaps the approach was a little too strong?” She strove for a smile.
“I don’t know how to be any different. And I’m not sure subtlety works anyway. Not with my brothers.” He placed his lips on her forehead.
She leaned against him, her hand over his heart, feeling the strong beat beneath her fingertips. She held back a sigh, not wanting him to misread it.
“Why don’t you get a shower in while I talk to my brothers? I’ll bring your bag in while you’re in there.”
He tipped her head up with his finger under her chin and kiss her lips slowly, masterfully.
“If you keep that up, I won’t be showering alone,” she warned him.
“Promises, promises.” He slapped her derrière as he pushed her toward a door at the other end of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Range stomped out of the bedroom, his fury barely under control. He’d managed to keep it together in front of Eira, but now, his wolf and he were beginning to lose it.
Chill, he warned himself—and his wolf. Chill.
He glanced out the back door’s window before opening it.
His brothers were embroiled in the middle of a heated discussion. He didn’t have to wonder which, if any, were on his side in this argument. He was certain not a single one of them were. Their own sense of self-preservation would probably keep them from being reasonable.
Let’s face it, that’s not all. True, it wasn’t just their sense of self-preservation that would rule. It was the effects of that damned study which had changed things between them. It wasn’t that they didn’t still have their easy camaraderie and a fierce desire to protect each other. It was that the study had put their wolves at odds, had made weird things happen to their animals, unexplainable, unique consequences, and the four brothers didn’t necessarily face the same ones.
That part Range hadn’t shared with Eira.
How could I?
True, how could he, for he didn’t want to face those repercussions himself.
Fingers on the door handle, he turned it.
Three heads snapped in his direction. Three muscular necks bulged with muscles. Six eyes narrowed. Six hands clenched into fists.
Make that eight hands, because Range found his own hands tightly squeezed into rock-hard fists.
He closed the door behind him and took long strides toward his brothers, boots crunching leaves into dirt.
Range stopped before them, said not a word, and looked from one to the other, to the other. Finally, he spoke. “Since when do you not trust me?”
Asa’s mouth dropped then snapped closed.
Davin and Jason were motionless.
“Well?” Range demanded, each passing second adding fuel to the fire of his wrath.
Finally, Asa relented. “It’s not that.”
Taken aback, Range glared. “What’s not that?”
Asa nodded and began to pace, kicking a pinecone toward a tree trunk, watching it sail through the air before he turned back to Range. “It’s not just that you brought a stranger here when we’ve always had a standing agreement that we wouldn’t do that. Though that should be enough—”
“Get to the point.” Range’s patience had been tested far enough.
“She’s different.”
Range tilted his head, studied Asa, then looked at Davin and Jason, who were both nodding. “Go on.”
“She’s not human,” Davin added.
“Or shifter.” This came from Jason.
“True.” Range couldn’t very well lie to them about that. He wouldn’t.
Asa looked toward the house. “So, what the hell is she?”
Range rubbed his jaw, the sound of his stubble being scratched, loud in the silent clearing next to the house. He hadn’t asked her permission to discuss what she was or her circumstances. This was not a position he liked being in.
“Valkyrie.”
All four of them snapped around to find Eira leaning against a
tree a few feet away.
Asa had dropped into a fighting stance, Jason and Davin had done the same.
“What the hell! How did she do that?”
“You can stop talking about me as if I’m not here.” Her eyes were narrowed.
She hadn’t showered. What had she done?
“Thought you were going to shower,” Range stepped toward her.
“And I thought you were going to bring my bag. I came out to get it and—”
“Eavesdropped,” Asa finished for her.
“Overheard—not eavesdropping,” she corrected Asa as she turned her violet gaze his way. “It’s not like you were trying to keep your conversation from being overheard.”
Davin put a hand on Asa and Range’s shoulders. “I hate to interrupt this personal stuff with boring business, but there’s a little situation.”
Eira looked between all of them, then turned to Range. “I suppose that’s my cue to leave.”
Range took her hand. “Stay.”
Asa opened his mouth—which earned him a scathing look from Range—then promptly closed it.
Range reaffirmed. “She stays. You know what she is. That in itself is a big enough secret that will equal anything she finds out about us.”
Eira nodded. “I’m willing to expand on it, at another time.” She looked at Asa, then Jason and Davin for sanction.
“Fair enough.” Asa nodded. The other two followed suit.
“Glad that’s settled.” Range exhaled. “I got the money for Vince’s kid. In my backpack.”
“Good.” Asa offered up a smile.
Range nodded. “Now, what’s this about business?”
“Mae called. Got a job. Lake Huron area. Battle between two shifter families. Casualties. Missing shifters. Locals talking, there’s a concern that authorities might be brought in.”
“So, what’s the plan,” Range asked.
“We’re packed,” Jason informed him. “Left you a note. It’s on the kitchen table.”
Davin nodded. “You weren’t exactly answering your calls.”
Range grimaced. True. He hadn’t wanted to tell them what was going on. “I’ll—we’ll—” He was going to say that he and Eira would go with them, but was that something she wanted to do? Was that something his brothers would be okay with?
“Another thing,” Asa added. “We had a call from a guy with an accent who said that George paid for a service and there was no delivery.”
Davin crossed his arms over his chest. “Is this about… Eira?”
“And will this bring us any fallout?” Jason asked.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was nothing gentle about the sex Eira and Range shared. Not typically, though it could be said they had tender moments.
Definitely not gentle this morning.
His cock was hard and pulsing as she took it in greedy hands. Mornings were her favorite, this he knew, whether he woke up hard or she made him that way.
She released a moan just from the feel of him against her fingertips, as she had every morning. Every single damned time.
She exhaled.
“Must be morning.” Her voice was husky with desire and sleep—still, clearly, she’d just awoken. And he loved that the first thing she woke up with on her mind was him.
And my cock.
Okay, sure. That too.
Morning indeed. One of several they’d shared at his place.
He slid her panties down, and ignoring the grip she had on him, he dove downward into her drenched and eager folds.
He would never have believed a woman like Eira existed. So powerful, so fierce, so in control. Except at this moment as his tongue lapped at her pinkness and teased her clit.
“Range.”
He looked up from between her legs. Her eyes fluttered and rolled backward.
“Mhm?” He let his breath tease her.
“Fuck, Range. Oh, fuck.”
“In a second.” Or more.
He blew again while her legs trembled, her thighs quivering. He couldn’t control his own breathing. He and his wolf were panting with desire while she wiggled against his mouth.
Her pulse roared in his ears, syncing with his. He stared into her eyes enjoying the way they fluctuated between violet and obsidian.
She wasn’t too far from a release. Another thing he loved about her. She gave into their pleasure easily and freely.
Eira whispered low, begging him for mercy, for release, for exactly what he planned to give her. He ground his lips against her clit then licked a trail upward, past her navel, between her breasts, locking her lips with his.
He tasted her still on his tongue and shared that taste with her. Her eyes flickered dark with desire again. In his head, his wolf howled for release.
His hardness rested against her entrance, a sheath that would envelop him with heat and moisture.
The thought made his muscles tighten and the head push in just a tiny bit.
This temptation catapulted him into a heady need to have her.
Now!
And have her he did, plunging in deeply, making her gasp as his thickness filled her. He groaned, and was not able to keep from pumping faster and faster while her nails dug into his back, scoring the flesh, marking her desire for him.
She finished, again, and then again, perspiration dotting her forehead, her lips kiss-swollen. Eira gave him a tremulous smile from those luscious lips. “Damn.”
Damn, was right.
And with that, he drove harder and more fiercely, groaning for release, his head filled with howls.
Her own voice raised in a crescendo as she began to climax again, her muscles tightening around him while her body milked his shaft, pushing him closer and closer—
With a roar, he released and at the same time sunk his canines into the base of her neck, marking her as his with a shifter couplebond.
There was no need to ask. No need to question.
She was his. Irreversibly, forever, his.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eira woke to the smell of coffee. There was nothing quite like the aroma in the morning to put a smile on her face. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Range could put a smile on her face quicker, better, longer. Her neck was tender. Just before she’d gone back to sleep after they’d had amazing sex, he’d told her that the bite he’d left on her neck would mark her as his, and him as hers.
As if we needed that.
But it was a shifter thing—she got that.
The room was quiet. Range’s room, in Range’s house. She wasn’t surprised it was quiet. His brothers had already left for their mission—project—operation.
She rose and made her way to the kitchen, passing the sunken game room and all the closed doors that Range had told her led to his brothers’ quarters.
She didn’t quite make it to the kitchen when he appeared—as if from nowhere—with a steaming cup. “Cream, no sugar, right?”
She smiled at him and lifted on her toes to give him a kiss. “Right.” She took the cup from him, noting the cream was foamy.
“You frothed it?”
That crooked smile made an appearance on his freshly shaven face. “I did.”
Going to have to keep this man around.
“So, want a tour?”
“Really? I get to see the secret entrance too?”
“Don’t knock it.” He gave her a mock growl.
Eira followed him down a corridor to a game room, also sunken, not unlike their living area. Wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor bookcases lined two of the walls. In the middle of one of the shelves, she spied a handle.
“I thought you weren’t going to be cliché and all that.”
He mock-frowned at her.
Eira pulled on the handle and the shelf swiveled, turning on an axis. A crevice appeared, almost three-foot-wide, more than six foot tall. “Looks like the entrance.”
“I don’t advise you to go in.”
“Why not? I thought you were going to
show me the—”
“That’s a false entrance. A trap, pretty much. You go in, it will lock you inside. Then I’ll have to go through the hassle of releasing you, then re-arming it.”
She turned toward him, backing away from the opening. “Seriously?”
He nodded, flipped a lever under the handle, then led her to another bookshelf and picked up a picture of four teenage boys. It was clear that it was Range and his brothers. Eira frowned in confusion. He turned it over and put pressure on two opposite corners.
The bookshelf in front of them opened up.
“How the hell…”
“Magnetic forces, some kind of mumbo-jumbo scientific magic, I guess. Don’t ask me; I didn’t design it. I don’t know the first thing about some of this stuff.”
She leaned into the darkness the shelf had disclosed.
“Ready for a tour?”
“Yeah!”
Range reached into the abyss before them and pressed on the wall just inside.
A clicking sound was followed by light, revealing a steep stairwell. His foot alit on the first step, then he put his hand out and beckoned for Eira to take it.
Eira stretched out on the bunk bed in one of the rooms of the underground bunker, her hand on Range’s chest. “I can’t believe this even exists. And the plans you have for it, that’s even harder to believe.”
The room was softly lit with bulbs that he’d told her were designed to be easy on the eyes.
“When do you plan to start raising the fish in the underwater tanks? Growing the vegetables under those lamps?” She’d already forgotten what he’d called the lamps.
“In the next couple months. Jason’s in charge of that part.”
“And who’s in charge of that armory with guns and ammo?” She couldn’t contain the excitement in her voice. Her sisterhood would love the weaponry these guys had and were planning to acquire.
“Asa’s job.” He shrugged. “What’s with all the questions? It almost sounds like you’re excited about being here.”
She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. “Are you kidding? I love this already. It’s…” She bit back what she was going to say. Would he even want to hear her thoughts on it?