by Quinn Loftis
“Thank you,” Fane said simply.
“It has been my honor, Fane Lupei.” She stood, patting her thighs and letting out a quick breath. “I do believe you have a mate and new son, which I will be stealing away as soon as you offer, so you should get back.”
She hugged him but this time it didn’t feel like she was losing something. This time it felt as if she’d gained something. He was her son, but he was also her friend.
Now another young pack member crept into her mind. If only she could be so honored to be a mentor, a parent of sorts, to Zara, then Alina would be fulfilling her role as pack Alpha.
Alina watched him leave and felt some of the pain dissolve from her heart. She sat back down on the couch with an unbecoming plop for an Alpha female. Alina nearly laughed. It felt good to almost laugh. And then she did laugh because it was hilarious that she thought feeling like almost laughing was funny. Her daughter-in-law would say she’d fallen off the deep end. She might be right.
“The only place you are falling is into my arms.” She heard Vasile’s voice through their bond.
“My love, if that was your idea of a pick-up line, you should tuck your tail and head the other direction because that was just awful. Almost, Jen would say, creepy awful.”
He laughed and Alina felt his humor and it relaxed her even more.
“You’ve done your duties as Alpha and mother. Now come take care of your mate,” he growled at her. She knew he was teasing her—sort of.
“Sorry, Alpha, but I think I hear Thia calling my name. She obviously has need of her aunt.”
Vasile huffed, making her smile widen.
“And what of my need of you?” His voice came from behind her where he stood in the doorway.
She stood and slowly walked to him. He held the other half of her soul and that connection pulled her to him like the moon pulled the tide. Once she’d reached him, he didn’t hesitate. He wrapped a muscular arm around her waist and pulled her against him. After all the decades upon decades that they’d been mated, being in Vasile’s arms never got old.
He leaned down and pressed his mouth over the bite that marked her as his. He nipped it and then kissed the flesh. His mouth traveled up her neck and stopped right beside her ear. Vasile’s warm breath blew across her skin and Alina sucked in a sharp breath. After all the decades, he hadn’t lost his effect on her.
“I think little Thia can wait,” he whispered in her ear, his lips brushing lightly against her flesh.
Alina couldn’t think straight, not when he seduced her and made it very clear that he still wanted her after all these years.
“Thia can wait,” she heard herself agreeing.
Later she might be embarrassed by the fact that her mate had shut the door behind him, locked it, and then proceeded to finish what he’d started. Yes, later she might feel that way—much, much later.
Bethany walked slowly around the suite that Decebel had provided for her and Drake. Jen had led the couple through a maze of twisting hallways nearly twenty minutes ago, Drake holding her hand and grumbling the entire way. With a warning to Drake to steer clear of the rest of the pack, Jen had slammed the door on them and Bethany distinctly heard the words fleabag and neuter through the door as the blonde stomped away. Drake had told Bethany to make herself at home, muttered something about smelling like a mangy mutt, and headed through a doorway that she guessed led to the bedroom. She’d heard the shower come on and decided to explore the suite while no one was watching her every move—not that she minded Drake’s eyes on her, but it did make her feel a little self-conscious.
As she surveyed her surroundings, she could tell that no one lived in this suite. There was no warmth. No pictures adorned the walls. No little mementos decorated the end tables or shelves on the walls. No memories had been made in this place. As she stared at her sparse surroundings, her mind wandered, bringing her back for a fleeting instant to her own home. She could smell fresh bread baking and see pictures, drawn in crayon, stuck to a white refrigerator. Tears slid into her eyes as, for only a moment, Bethany remembered her own home. She reached out desperately, trying to catch hold of the memory—to feel again the warmth, the love from her family—but it was gone.
As the memory faded, she noticed that the furniture in this room was very large. The couch was brown leather and there were two matching chairs on either side. The end tables looked as though they’d been made by hand out of wood that had been hand cut. Each was unique and beautiful. The coffee table was the same—hand cut wood with the knots from the tree visible in some places. Bethany walked over to the windows that lined the back wall. The curtains were made out of a soft, but thick brown fabric, unlike anything she’d felt before.
“They’re suede,” a deep voice rumbled from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder to find Drake in a pair of jeans pulling a red t-shirt over his head. He’d been shirtless the entire time he’d been in the cage, but for some reason, seeing him outside of the cage, freshly showered, had a different effect upon her. Her cheeks warmed and she turned back to examine the suede curtains.
“Brown seems to be a favored color,” she said teasingly.
He chuckled. “Our own rooms are decorated to our taste, but this, this one was set up as a generic suite for visiting guests. I guess they wanted neutral colors.”
“The color isn’t bad…it just feels empty,” she told him. “Not super inviting, I mean.”
“You can change whatever you want.”
Bethany turned around, her eyes wide. “Change?”
His hand swept over the room. “If there’s anything you don’t like, you can pick something different.”
“But this isn’t your suite,” she pointed out, as if he didn’t know.
Drake walked toward her, his steps slow as though not to startle her. Bethany wanted to roll her eyes. She wasn’t a frightened rabbit. Wait, maybe he saw her as a rabbit. “Do you see me as a rabbit?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
He paused his pursuit and tilted his head slightly. Seeming to come to a conclusion, he continued forward. Once he was standing less than a foot away, he reached up and placed a hand on her neck wrapping his fingers around the back while his thumb stroked the sensitive skin just below her chin. “First, I would like it to be our suite—a place we can both call home—a place of warmth that reflects our shared lives. Second, I see you as my mate and I would never describe someone as brave as you as a frightened rabbit.” He paused as he continued to stare down at her. His touch was affecting her in ways that she didn’t really understand, but she liked. “I will sleep on the couch and you can take the bedroom.”
Bethany tilted her head to the side to look at the couch. Sure, it was big, but not long enough for Drake to stretch out comfortably on. She shook her head. “No, I can take the couch. I’ll fit better on it than you will.”
“I want you to feel comfortable and safe, Bethy. And I’d prefer to sleep between you and the front door.”
He wanted to protect her, Bethany realized. Jen had been right; these werewolves took protection to a whole new level. Assuming any argument would likely be fruitless and only stress him out or cause more problems, she consented.
“Alright, if that is what you want,” she told him, staring up into his eyes that, though some might call grey, she saw as a shimmery silver color.
“Sometimes what we want and what we need are miles apart,” he told her. “I want to be able to give you space so that you don’t feel smothered. I know that you are probably still very confused. But I need to know you’re safe and I need to be near you. That is not something that I can change. That is an instinct that is controlled by the wolf.”
Bethany could tell that those words had been difficult for him to say. She felt through the bond that Drake was ashamed.
“Is it really shameful to need someone?” she asked him, truly wondering. Because if so, then she should feel ashamed too because she was rapidly coming to understand
that she needed him as well. He made her feel wanted, safe, and cared for. Those were things she had not felt in a very long time. Drake gave her somewhere to belong again—a new family, a replacement for her family that had been ripped away from her. She didn’t want to feel ashamed of needing him.
“No,” he answered quickly and pulled her closer to him.
She could feel the warmth from his body seeping out of him and into her. She wanted to get closer, so she did. Bethany took another step, closing the gap between them so that their bodies were now touching. Drake froze. She didn’t even think he was breathing. Had she done something wrong? She started to take a step back but Drake dropped his hand from her neck and wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. She held back the sigh of relief his embrace brought, but just barely.
“There is no shame in needing someone, Bethany.” His voice was rough with emotion and that same emotion filled his eyes. “I am ashamed because I feel like I am taking your choices from you. I don’t want you to feel like you went from one prison to another. I fear that you will one day resent me if I don’t let you go and experience life before deciding to commit to me.”
She blinked several times as she mulled over his words. She understood what he was saying, but she also thought that there could be a way where they could both get the things they needed.
She took a breath before looking back up at him. “If I want to go back to America, would you come with me?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
“And if I want to go to” —she thought about the few countries that she could remember learning about when she was a girl— “China, would you go with me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I wanted to get my first cell phone, will you help me get one?”
“Of course,” he answered.
“And if I decided, after all the time we’d spent together, to leave, to live a different life than this one, would you let me go?”
His answer did not come as quickly this time. “I” —he swallowed— “I would if I could. If you didn’t want to be with me…I would let you go.”
Bethany believed him, but she could tell that there was something he wasn’t telling her. “But?” she coaxed. “What are you not saying, Drake?”
He closed his eyes. “I love it when you say my name.”
“Don’t try to distract me,” Bethany said dryly.
After several seconds, Drake opened his eyes. “I would let you go, but…” He emphasized the word. “In order for that to happen, I would have to request that my Alpha put me down.”
“Put you down where?” she asked. Her brow furrowed deeply and her lips thinned. She didn’t like the sound of that.
“I don’t want this knowledge to sway you, love. I want you to make whatever decision you feel is best for you, not based on my actions or reactions.”
“Please, Drake, tell me what that means.”
Drake sighed. It was heavy, as though he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. “It means he would have to kill me.”
She jerked back out of his arms. “What?” Her voice rose an octave and filled up the room.
“We are not human, Bethany. We do not respond to things as humans do. We are Canis lupus and we have our own ways. I know it’s hard to understand them if you’ve not grown up with them your whole life.”
She didn’t even know what to say. She literally held his life in the palm of her hands. “So, if I choose to walk away—” She took in a quick breath. Bethany’s hands were shaking and she didn’t understand why. “That would mean the end of your life? Just like that?”
Drake’s shoulders were tense and his mouth drawn into a hard line. He looked as if he’d rather eat nails than have this conversation. But Bethany wasn’t going to let it go. It was just too important.
“We should probably sit down for this conversation.” He motioned to the large, and suddenly inviting, couch.
She sat on one end, turning her body so that one leg was pulled up on the side while the other dangled. Drake sat, but he didn’t lean back. Instead, his elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward. His hands were clasped together and his chin rested on the fist they made. It took so long for him to begin speaking that Bethany was kind of worried there would be a vampire apocalypse before she got the answers from him, but after several long minutes, he finally spoke.
“When a wolf finds his true mate, he has found the one woman he will spend his life living for or dying for—the only woman. She holds the other half of the male’s soul, and he holds hers. We mate for life, literally. If a mated pair has completed the Bonding Rites, then their fates are tied. If one dies, so does the other. We cannot live without our mate.”
That last sentence was said as if Bethany had asked him to live without air. And maybe she had.
Chapter 6
“How does someone survive in the dark once they’ve been shown how beautiful it is in the light?” ~Costin
Three days missing.
Costin was a mess. There was no other way to put it. Before Sally, he’d been getting by, living behind the smile and the jokes, but deep down the darkness was creeping further and further into his soul. Then she’d come, and like the first rays of the sun in the morning, she’d lit him up from the inside out. Sally had replaced all of the loneliness and pain. She’d brought him the hope that comes with having a true mate. And just as quickly as she’d appeared in his life, quicker actually, she’d been ripped away.
“Can we go outside, Daddy?” Titus asked. It was midafternoon and he knew the little boy had to be getting restless. He’d gotten to play and walk around the mansion, but he’d been cooped up inside, and Costin knew that fresh air would do them both some good.
“Sure, buddy. We can go out.”
Peri had been kind enough to bring Titus some clothes and a jacket, shoes, and socks. Though Spring was upon them, in the morning the air was still cool enough to warrant a light jacket. Costin helped Titus pull on his jacket and slip on his shoes before taking his hand and walking them out of the large house.
“There’s a lot of steps to take before you can get to a door to go outside,” the little boy pointed out.
Costin smiled. “Yes, there are a lot of steps to take.”
“Will we always live here?” Titus asked.
Costin thought about it. He’d always planned to stay in the pack mansion, though not everyone in the pack lived there. But he guessed that could change, if Sally wanted. Although even if they didn’t live in the pack mansion, they would need to live close since she was healer to the Serbia pack.
“It depends on what Mommy wants,” Costin told him.
“I think she will want to stay.”
“Do you want to stay?” he asked his son. For some reason, it wasn’t hard at all to think of Titus as his son; it was like the boy had always been his and Sally’s.
“It feels safe here,” Titus admitted. “Safe is good.”
“Yes, I agree,” Costin nodded. “Safe is always good.”
Once they were outside, Costin let Titus take the lead. They walked up toward the forest that lead into the mountains. Though he wasn’t in his home country of Romania, the huge mountain range was the same, and the forest brought back so many memories—some good, some bad. It was where they’d fought Desdemona. It was where they’d battled the warlocks, who happened to be battling trolls at the time. It was where the males of the pack had been taken and banished to the In Between. Some would say those were bad memories, but for Costin they were bittersweet. Yes, they were memories of some very dark and difficult things, but they were also memories that included his love. He would take any memory, no matter how painful it was, if it included his Sally in some way.
“I like the being outside,” Titus said with a smile in his voice. “I like the sun and the way the forest smells.”
“You didn’t see either of those things for a long time.”
He shook his head. “Nop
e. Only the black.”
Costin knew that he was speaking of the darkness that was underground. “Were you scared?” Costin asked the boy.
“Sometimes,” Titus admitted. “But sometimes the angel would come visit me and then I wouldn’t be so scared.”
The Great Luna had been watching over her children, as she always did. Though Costin hadn’t been Titus’ dad at that point, he was still so thankful that she had been watching over the child that would one day be his and his mate’s.
“COSTIN!” His name rang out, piercing the silence of the forest. He scooped up Titus and bolted back to the mansion. His thoughts immediately jumped to the possibility that they’d found Sally. His heart was pounding as hard as his feet were against the earth and, though he usually wasn’t ever short of breath thanks to his werewolf gene, he could barely breathe.
As soon as the mansion came into view, he saw Jen standing on the steps, her face splotchy with tears and her cheeks red. She looked overjoyed. Decebel stood next to her and, though his face wasn’t nearly as exuberant as his mate’s, it was still obvious that he was relieved. They must have found her. They had to have found her.
“Jacque and Fane are alive!” Jen blubbered. “Peri said they woke up last night but she didn’t tell us because she wanted to give them time with Slate—that’s what they named him. I told her I was pissed that she didn’t tell us, but that I forgave her because she did keep my best friend alive, and she had my gratitude for eternity because of it. Although she didn’t—COSTIN!”
Costin didn’t register his legs giving out from underneath him. He didn’t notice Decebel moving toward him at inhuman speed to catch Titus before his knees crashed to the ground, along with his hope.
They hadn’t found his Sally. She was still lost to him. Her light was still gone. Costin wanted to be strong. He wanted to be stoic like Decebel, and levelheaded like Vasile, but that wasn’t who he was. He was the lighthearted, emotional one. He couldn’t hide his pain behind a mask of fury or a wall of determination, at least not yet. Costin was still too broken to do anything more than fall forward, his head pressed against the ground, and weep.