What a Wolf Desires (Lux Catena Series Book 1)

by Amy Pennza

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” She stepped backwards but kept her gaze pinned on him.

  “Thank you, Stephanie.” He pronounced it the French way, with emphasis on the middle syllable.

  She let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and breathless laughter. “It’s no problem.” She stuffed her order pad in her apron and took off in the direction of the kitchen, only to jerk to a stop and spin on her heel. “Um, did you want drinks? Waters or—”

  “Water is fine,” Lizette said without turning around.

  Stephanie looked at Max.

  He held up two fingers. “Deux.”

  She giggled and headed toward the kitchen.

  Lizette folded her arms. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never heard you roll your Rs like that.”

  “She likes French.” He shrugged.

  Her voice dropped to a hiss. “You were flexing.”

  A bolt of pure delight shot through him. He grinned. “Careful, petite. You sound jealous.”

  “Please.” She made a scoffing sound and swept her hair away from her face with fussy, agitated movements. Then she pulled the thick mass over one shoulder.

  “Your hair is beautiful.”

  She stilled.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking right now?”

  “No.”

  He called up his wolf just enough to put weight behind his words, like setting them in a boat and nudging it toward her. “I’m thinking you’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. No other female compares.”

  She inhaled sharply. Then she looked down and straightened the cutlery rolled inside her napkin. “I thought you’d be mad because I left without permission.”

  “Oh, I am. You might even say furious.”

  She looked up. “Then why aren’t you yelling at me?”

  “Because there are other things I’d rather do with you.”

  The sweet scent of her desire bloomed around him. His wolf sat up, primed for the hunt. Ah, the game is still on.

  And he wasn’t going to lose this time.

  Tendrils of Max’s power swirled around Lizette, brushing her skin…pulling her toward him. His wolf peeked out from his eyes, its look dominant.

  Possessive.

  She gripped the hard plastic edge of her seat. “Max—”

  Stephanie emerged from the kitchen carrying two glasses.

  Lizette gave Max a warning look. He wouldn’t make a scene in public, would he? Not in front of humans.

  “Here we go.” Stephanie set a water in front of each of them, then pulled two paper-wrapped straws out of her apron pocket. “You two okay?”

  “Perfect,” Max said, his eyes on Lizette.

  Stephanie looked between them. “All right… Well, food should be out in a minute.” She took off, the rubber soles of her non-skid shoes squeaking against the cheap linoleum.

  Lizette let out a breath. “You shouldn’t say such things to me.”

  “It’s the truth, petite. Use your n—”

  “Do not tell me to use my nose!” She looked toward the kitchen, then lowered her voice. “Anyway, it won’t work with this. I know you want me, and now I know why.”

  He sat back. “Oh? Enlighten me.”

  The thick white cotton of his shirt molded to his chest, outlining the hard muscle beneath. The borrowed unisex clothing should have made him look sloppy, but the plain colors emphasized the rugged beauty of his features. Without the distraction of patterns or bold shades, the only thing left was Max himself—the hard angles of his face and the burning intensity of his gaze.

  She looked down to avoid getting entangled in it. “It’s my Gift. If what you say about Bloodsingers is true, you’d be a fool to pass up the chance to own one.”

  His scornful laugh brought her head up. “Is that what you think? That I want to own you?”

  “You kept my parents’ Gifts a secret. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth.” Bitterness welled up. “I suppose it was easier to control me that way.”

  The scent of syrup and grilled meat washed across the booth. Lizette looked out the window as Stephanie carried two steaming plates to the table. “Here’s the burger…and the pancakes.” She stood back. “Anything else?”

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Max said.

  “Okay. I’ll check on you in a bit.” Her footsteps faded in the direction of the kitchen.

  In her peripheral vision Lizette saw Max dribble syrup over a huge stack of pancakes. “You should eat,” he said.

  She looked at her plate. The cook had toasted the bun just the way she liked it. A pile of golden steak fries nestled against the burger, and a thick pickle spear balanced on one side of the plate. She unwrapped her cutlery and spread her napkin on her lap. The burger oozed cheese as she picked it up. She bit into it and stifled a groan. There was nothing like a hole in the wall diner for comfort food. Grease dripped onto her hand. If she’d been alone she might have licked it off. Instead she took another bite, savoring the crunch of lettuce and the tangy mix of ketchup and mustard. Before she knew it, the burger was gone and she was wiping grease off her hands and forearms.

  “Good?” Max’s tone held a thread of humor.

  She grabbed the ketchup and squirted some onto her plate. “Yes.”

  “Do you remember Margot Rutherford?”

  The abrupt change in subject took her by surprise. She dipped a fry in her puddle of ketchup. “Yes. She spent a summer at the Lodge when her parents went to Europe.”

  “Do you remember punching her in the face?”

  He’d caught her in the middle of chewing. She swallowed and dusted salt off her fingers. “It was my birthday.”

  “Your sixteenth. What do the humans call it?”

  “Sweet sixteen.”

  He smiled. “That’s right.”

  Memories assailed her. “You got me balloons…and a cake. I’d never had a birthday party before.” Max had gone all-out, transforming the Lodge’s rec room into a fairyland of pink and purple flowers and party favors.

  He even roped Remy into playing DJ for the night. Margot Rutherford, an Alpha’s daughter a couple of years older than Lizette, had sidled up to her.

  “This is a nice party,” she said.

  Lizette looked up from her cake. Something in Margot’s voice had made her think Margot didn’t really mean what she said, but Lizette smiled anyway. She didn’t have many friends among the wolves. She couldn’t afford to snub Margot. “Thanks.”

  “It’s too bad your parents aren’t here to see it.”

  The casual cruelty of the words squeezed Lizette’s heart like a vise, but she forced herself to shrug. “I don’t remember them much.”

  “That’s too bad.” Margot trailed a finger through the thick frosting on Lizette’s cake. “Although maybe it’s for the best.” She sucked the frosting off her finger. “My dad says your mom was a raging bitch.”

  Lizette looked at her cake—at the deep furrow Margot’s finger had gouged in the perfect frosting. She set her plate down.

  Margot smiled.

  Lizette pulled back her fist and slammed it into Margot’s face.

  They took Lizette straight to Max.

  “Your hand’s bleeding,” he said from behind his desk.

  Lizette looked at it, surprised. She hadn’t noticed. Now that he mentioned it, though, it started to sting.

  “Why is your hand bleeding, petite?”

  “I punched Margot Rutherford in the face.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Did you have a good reason?”

  Lizette lifted her chin. “She insulted my mother…my real one.”

  “Ah.” The wolf rolled over his eyes, and a tingling awareness prickled across her skin. She should be afraid of him, she knew, but somehow she didn’t think his anger was directed at her. She locked gazes with him, unable to look away from the icy beauty of his stare.

  �
�I’ll speak to Margot,” he said. “You go on back to the party. It’s your birthday. You should enjoy yourself.”

  She shrugged. “It’s ruined now anyway. Everybody wanted to go home after I punched Margot.”

  “Generally speaking, it’s considered impolite to punch your guests.”

  Her cheeks heated. “Will you… Am I in trouble for that?” She had to ask. The worst part of any punishment was waiting to find out how bad it would be.

  He stood and walked around the desk, stopping in front of her. His gray sweater strained across his chest, and his black hair touched his collar. Someone should tell him he needs a haircut. He lifted her hand and brushed his fingertips over the abrasions on her knuckles. “I think you’ve suffered enough. Although I doubt Margot will want to remain friends.”

  Lizette suppressed the shiver rippling under her skin. “That’s okay. I don’t like her anyway.”

  A laugh rumbled up from his chest. He brought her hand to his lips and dropped a light kiss on the cuts. “You know what? Neither do I.”

  Max gazed at her now, a strange tenderness in his expression. The knuckles on her right hand tingled. She stuck her hands in her lap.

  “I never thanked you for the party,” she said. “It meant a lot.”

  “I’m sorry Margot ruined it.”

  “I got over it.”

  “She wasn’t wrong.”

  Lizette froze. “What?”

  He pushed his empty plate away. “About your mother.”

  What the hell? A little ball of anger ignited in her belly. “She called her a raging bitch.”

  “I know what she said, petite.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, almost as if he was weary. He took a deep breath. “Noémie Arsenault had a reputation for being hot-headed and…outspoken.”

  “You knew my mother?”

  He shook his head. “Non. I met her once, as a boy. She and your father had already moved to California by the time my father died and I took over the pack. He had more than a few encounters with her, though. She was a formidable fighter.”

  Lizette felt her jaw drop. Her mother had been a fighter? “Like dominance contests?”

  The hint of a smile played around Max’s mouth. “You think females can’t fight?”

  “No. I mean no, I don’t think that. Of course they can. I just…”

  She’d never pictured her mother doing it. Dominance contests were almost always to the death—and if they weren’t, the loser usually didn’t live long afterward.

  Once a wolf lost a fight, others saw it as an opportunity to issue their own challenge. No wolf could fight back-to-back contests without getting hurt, and an injured wolf was easy pickings for a challenger looking to move up the ranks. Alphas discouraged challenges because their species couldn’t afford to lose anyone. But the instinct to dominate was too deeply ingrained.

  “Noémie had a bad temper,” Max said. “According to my father, she let her wolf rule her—an unusual trait in a Healer.”

  “What about my father? Was he a good fighter, too?”

  “I’ve never heard him described that way, no. Edgar was, by all accounts, a skilled and generous Healer.”

  Hearing her father’s name always jarred Lizette. It seemed so inappropriate for a werewolf. Edgar was a name for an elderly gardener or a mentally imbalanced poet. When her father was born in the 1920s, however, it had been a fashionable name for a young man.

  “His Alpha kept his Bloodsinger talent a secret,” Max said. “My father did the same with Noémie.”

  “Why?” Her whole life she’d viewed the memories of her parents through a murky glass. Now Max had rubbed away the fog. She hungered for details—for a clear view of the people who brought her into the world.

  “You are so rare,” Max said, his voice soft. “And there are many who would exploit you if they could.”

  Like you? The question hung in the air between them. “Did someone try to exploit them?”

  His eyes grew shadowed. “I’ve wondered that. The seat of your father’s home territory is five hundred miles from Montreal. Yet someone arranged for your parents to meet…and made certain they spent time together. I don’t think it was a coincidence.” He lifted his napkin and wiped his mouth. “Although maybe they were meant to be. Once they met, they were inseparable.”

  “The lux catena.” Lizette felt sick. “They had no choice but to be together.”

  “No, petite.” Max pushed their plates to the edge of the table and leaned forward, his intent gaze penetrating. “You have it backwards. The bond can’t force anyone to fall in love. Cherish, yes. Protect, yes. When your very life depends on someone else’s, you have a vested interest in making sure that person is happy and safe.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I saw them together. They were obsessed with each other. I got in the way.”

  Memories rushed up—days and nights spent on her own in a deserted house, her only companions the television and the sound of waves pounding against the beach. She dragged a chair in front of the microwave once, intent on making a box of macaroni and cheese for dinner. Without instructions from an adult in the house, she put a metal pot inside. Her parents never noticed the scorched interior—or the melted pot she’d buried in the garbage.

  Tears burned her throat. She looked at Max. “I’d rather never have children than make one feel unwanted.”

  His voice was low and insistent. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, bébé. Lizette, look at me.” He lifted from his seat, leaned over the table, and pulled her hand from her lap. “Having a special Gift doesn’t make someone a good person—or a good parent. People who knew Noémie either loved her or hated her. She was a strong personality. Passionate, yes, but that passion had a price. When she met your father, it tipped to obsession. I never met Edgar, but I know he was an extremely handsome man, with dark hair and deep blue eyes.”

  Like me. Lizette had known that. Of course she remembered what her parents looked like. But somehow she’d never given their appearances much thought. Perhaps, like all children, she’d always thought of her parents as idealized versions of themselves rather than flawed beings with their own desires and shortcomings.

  Max went on. “Your mother loved him, and she couldn’t bear to share him.”

  Lizette looked at their joined hands, confusion swirling in her mind. “I don’t understand. They were bonded. Why would she need to share him?”

  “Healing is personal. Intimate, even. You know that. Healers use their own blood to close wounds, not unlike the blood-binding of the lux catena. You’ve never done it consciously, but Turning a latent is like healing on steroids. At least that’s how my father described it.”

  She couldn’t argue with him there. The headaches and fatigue that hounded her were no joke. “So they never used their Bloodsinger abilities?”

  Max shook his head. “From what I know, Edgar was happy to use his Gift. Noémie was not. More than that, she wouldn’t stand by and watch him use his. She picked fights when he tried. Sooner or later, she would have lost.”

  A strange protective instinct rose in Lizette. “Maybe she had a good reason. Based on everything you’ve told me, being a Bloodsinger is horrible.” A memory sprang into her mind. “You called it a curse. Maybe my mother just didn’t like the idea of being imprisoned and forced to Turn latents for the rest of her life.”

  Max looked thoughtful for a second, then he said, “I won’t lie and say your Gift isn’t a burden. But in your parents’ case, as in yours, a strong Alpha could have protected them. An honorable Alpha would have revered them. My father was both of those things. It broke his heart when Noémie chose to run away rather than help her people.”

  “Why didn’t he try to track her down?”

  “He did. Noémie and Edgar managed to stay one step ahead of him.”

  Pieces fell into place. “We moved all the time. They never let me go to school…”

  “They were hiding.” He traced a lazy circle o
n the back of her hand. “They hid so well it took me years to find you. I had a feeling you’d inherited their Gifts, but I kept it from you because I wanted to give you a chance to adjust to being part of the pack. I wanted you to trust me to protect you. And when I violated your trust…” Pain flashed across his face. “It nearly killed me to let you go. I’ve been a dead man these past five years. Each day without you by my side and in my bed has been a penance.”

  His eyes lightened a shade. “Your parents were fools to let you believe you were human. You should have been raised in the Lodge, surrounded by your own kind. Protected and trained. Cherished and loved.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. “And you are loved, petite.”

  It would be so easy to accept what he was telling her—so easy to lean into his hand and believe she was more to him than a way to increase his power. “You don’t love me, Max. Maybe you think you do, but you—”

  “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.”

  “I was fifteen when you met me.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he tightened his grip.

  “You think like a human. The wolf doesn’t care about such things.” His voice dropped into a lower register. “Mine knew its mate the second I touched you.”

  “Max…” She glanced at the kitchen area. His fangs were showing. She tugged at her hand again.

  He seized her wrist. She resisted, but his low warning growl made her stop. “Just so we’re clear, I also knew you were mine the second I touched you. I knew I’d be the only man to touch you. The first and last, do you understand me?”

  Heat shot to her sex. She clamped her thighs together. The possessive words shouldn’t have provoked such a response. She should have reached across the table and slapped him. Instead, her nipples tightened to hard points.

  “Let me be clear about something else,” he said. “I had a revelation tonight. You won’t believe me, but I don’t care. The only thing I care about is us.”

  “Max—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your Gift.” His fingers bit into the soft skin of her wrist. “You want proof that I love you? I thought you were dead tonight. I thought you’d jumped off that balcony to escape me, and I wanted to die too. Because I realized my life is meaningless unless you’re in it.” He dropped his voice into an octave only a wolf could hear. “We’re not even properly bound, and I know without a shred of doubt that I’d die if anything happened to you.”