*****
I woke up with sun on my face because we hadn’t closed the shutters last night, and the woman I loved more than life itself, in my arms. I reveled in the weight of her in my embrace, the heat of her body warming me, the feel and sound of her heart and the smell of her in the room. I took a deep breath; one that sucked in all the glorious scents that were all Josette.
Our life had become a crazy amusement park ride. Too crazy to be called a rollercoaster, nothing as sane as something that ran on a track or went in a circle, because God knows, every new thing was something completely and utterly different. She was just so powerful. It was hard to believe that just months ago she was a socially awkward, quiet, slightly withdrawn, loner from a small town. Now she was...so much more. The thought was almost scary. How powerful we both had become as werewolves. But as the old saying goes, with great power, comes great responsibility, and mine was to protect Josette and hers was to lead the wolves.
Josette stretched and turned to face me. “Someone’s coming,” she said sitting up in bed.
I hoped it was friend and not foe because I was a little distracted by the sight of her naked upper body. I’m guessing if we were in for some trouble she’d be moving a little faster and not doing that slow climb from the bed that was making me want to pull her back in bed and do bad things to her—correction—good things. Very good.
My eyes were glued to her body. I actually bit my lip and swallowed hard when she flashed her wonderful backside at me when she stood up. My body tingled I wanted her so much. My gums itched where my canines wanted to punch through, my teeth wanted to be in her skin.
Busted.
She turned to look at me. She looked lower and smile, a slow sexy smile that spread across her face like a sunrise.
I crawled from my side across the bed with a growl building in the room like a warning siren. If she took one step backwards it was all over, but she stood still. Dammit. I wanted to chase her. Wanted to run after her and take her down to the floor.
I rose to my knees and pulled her into my arms. “You haven’t kissed me Tehila.”
Her hands rubbed my arms. I bent to give her access to my lips. There was nothing chaste in the good morning kiss my true love offered me and it was enough to send me over the edge. The arms around her dropped low and I grabbed her and she threw her legs around my waist. When we become one I lost myself in her, blinded of all things. The house could’ve fallen down around us and I’d barely notice it. She bit down on my shoulder to muffle her scream and I bit her to hide mine. We were two heavy breathing messes when the soft knock on the door forced me to raise my head.
“Ye...Yeah,” I said.
“Stop fucking around and get your ass out here.” Joffrey voice was full of smiles and laughter.
Jackass.
“You’re not going to believe whose here.”
I groaned when our bodies separate. “Come on lover,” I said to Josette.
We were smiling secret smiles, although it was no secret about what we’d been up to in a house full of people with super hearing. It’s a good thing werewolves aren’t bashful. Thanks to my behavior last night our clothes hadn’t survived, so we walked out of the master suite hand in hand wearing my father’s clothes. Me in a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms that showed off about six inches of my lower leg and Josette in the matching top that stopped just above her knees. Knowing that she was naked under it didn’t help my libido. Not one bit.
I was looking at Josette because I hadn’t gotten my fill of her and was already plotting ways to get her alone again, when she stopped in her tracks and her mouth dropped open. I forced my head to turn. Her father was sitting on the couch.
Holy shit.
Josette pulled away from me and ran to her father. He stood up with a sad smile and caught her when she threw herself at him. She was crying, loud and hard. He ran his hands down her hair to offer her comfort. The rest of the room stood and waited. After long moments she stepped back and wiped her eyes.
We’d settled in on couches, chairs and the floor. Everyone was accounted for including Mr. B. I didn’t see Mrs. B but I could hear her in the house. She was on the phone upstairs. No one was dressed. We all had on different versions of sleepwear, except Wallace. He had on his kilt from last night. I’d never seen the man without a shirt or shoes on. He was big, even his feet looked strong.
“Where have you been?” Josette said. She was sitting next to her father looking at him, her mind still trying to decide if he was real or not.
“Hiding...planning...staying with a very nice family, the Patton’s’,” he said.
“I know the Patton’s, their son Christopher is tight. Mr. and Mrs. Patton are good people,” Joffrey said.
Julian nodded. “We were ambushed on our way from the airport. I don’t know how anyone found out my plans. The car was forced off the road, landed upside down in a ditch. The car was completely surrounded and we got separated. I fought with several people before being shot. I fell down a hill and lucky for me, left for dead. When I came to the next morning, I started walking. I walked all day. That night I came to the Patton’s home. I stood the first night trying to figure out if I dare drag them into the mess I found myself in, or if they were a part of it. For all I knew they could have been supporters of my mother.”
“Your mother is dead,” Josette said. “Mom is dead.”
Julian pulled Josette in his arms. “I know love.”
“So you’ve been with the Patton’s all this time,” Joffrey asked.
Julian looked at my friend, not unfriendly just, who-the-hell-are-you. “I’m Joffrey Bishop, Max’s best friend. My family and I came to show our support for the queen and king.”
“Thank you Joffrey, to you and your family. You’re the reason I knew how to find Josette and Max.”
“How’s that,” I asked.
“Joffrey’s mother has been making phone calls trying to find supporters,” he said looking down at Josette and then to me.
His look was most definitely not friendly, the one he gave me would have made me nervous, hell, would have made me run, but there was too much he didn’t know. I met his gaze. She was mine now, and I knew what she was capable of.
“For the challenge tomorrow night,” he said, still giving me the stank-eye.
“If you think you can stop her have at it,” I said.
“I trusted you to protect my daughter. I’ll always be grateful to you for saving her from the attack, and for getting her to safety after the house was raided, but how could you Maxwell.”
“Josette is queen, she makes the rules. I’m just her lowly servant,” I said.
So many emotions ran across Julian’s face that it was like watching a CGI video. The last of which was rage.
“And you’re her damn mate!”
I had a feeling if Josette wasn’t in his arms he would have said it a little louder. Maybe even came after me. Tonight was the full moon. Strong werewolves usually don’t change on the first night. But it’s because they will it so. I knew his body was already humming with power. Mine was.
“I know you two are young and in love, caught up in being ulric and ulrich. I know that Josette compares the two of you to the Sun Wolf and White Queen but Max, you grew up wolf. You should know better.”
There were a couple of cleared throats. Jean Rene and Diana had joined us late, after most of us were settled. They sat behind Julian, Diana in Jean Rene’s lap. He’d either not seen them or hadn’t paid close attention to them. If he had, surely he would have noticed a woman that looked like his daughter.
“To allow Josette to challenge Thomas Ronin...I can’t believe it. I’ve never been so disappointed in anyone in all my life.”
I sat there and took it like a man. I mean, how was he to know the strongest werewolf in existence was sitting next to him. It was no skin off my back to let him get it off of his chest.
“Thank God for Joffrey’s mother’s phone call. If R
onin didn’t kill you after he’d killed my daughter, it was going to become my reason for living.”
Okay. I’d heard enough.
“With all due respect, Lycaon, Josette is my responsibility and there’s no way I would have agreed to let her fight Thomas Ronin if I didn’t think she could win. Like I said, I tried to stop her—”
“Boy did he,” Wallace said.
“But she proved herself,” I said ignoring Wallace.
Virginia didn’t. Her stare chilled the room five degrees and she made a swiping motion across her neck that promised bad things. God, I loved this people. I bit back a smile while Julian gave me evil-eyes.
“Proved herself how?”
“In a fight.”
“And she won?” he said a little astonished.
“No,” I answered.
Julian had heard enough. He stood up. Slow. He was a tall man, not tall as Thomas, and not big as Wallace or Mr. B but still a big man. He was an alpha werewolf and had been raised to be king. When a man with that much power and authority pulls himself up, it’s pretty damn impressive.
I looked at Josette. She hadn’t said a thing. Hadn’t come to my defense and corrected her father or offered any explanation. Her face was blank as she looked at me from across the coffee table that separated us. I open the shields that I’d become good at throwing up to keep us separated enough for us to function without tripping over each other’s emotions and thoughts.
She no longer saw her father as king. She loved and respected him. She was glad that he was alive and well. She saw him as a good and strong male, but he was not the king.
I was.
And she was waiting on me to act like one.
So much of me was now Josette. About making sure she was safe. I’d rip out the throat of any man, woman or child that meant her harm, but in truth I’d never really thought about being king. Sure I had the title, even liked it, but in my head, Josette was queen, and for me to be king over her was all that I cared about.
But Josette didn’t see me that way. Not standing behind her as a consort, or in front of her as her protector and alpha, but beside her. I saw in my mind’s eye as we stood side by side and then the two forms join together, Sometimes it was my features that stood out with Josette’s form within mine, sometimes it was hers with mine a shadow outlining her.
“I draw from your strength as much as you draw from mine. Not two pieces that make a whole, but one.” I heard her voice in my head as if she’d spoken out loud.
I stood up. I’m taller than her father but it’s not the size that matter. He was still standing there in all his regal glory throwing off mad, I-am-king vibes. I drew off Josette’s power. The one that allows her to change a wolf’s form and added it to my own. I felt the waist of the pants I wore get tight around my waist. Felt my arms and legs grow longer and my muscles thicken. Saw the stunned look in Josette’s father’s eyes as I changed right before his eyes.
“Josette is queen of the wolves. Her word is law. She fought me and loss, but she is a strong wolf, stronger than you and stronger than Thomas Ronin. She’ll win the challenge and then take her place, but she is mine; mine in all ways. And I am king.”
Damn skippy.
The room was quiet. I didn’t dare look around, didn’t take my eyes from the man in front of me. Julian looked at me, lowered his head to look at his daughter who met his gaze. He looked at me again and then looked around the room. He saw Diana and turned all the way around and took a shaky step back.
“What am I missing here,” he said.
Introductions were made. There were so many people that by the time we were done it made me think of that old joke, “Who’s on First.” An endless flow of names, titles, positions. Josette’s father took it all in stride. He sat across from the couch, taking my place in the chair as Josette and I, and Diana and Jean Rene, filled him in on everything.
“Incredible,” he said when we were finished. He looked around the room. Took in the sight of the people, legendary and not. “Amazing.”
“It is a wondrous thing, but our time grows short and I think your interrupted story may include additional information. You said ‘we’ when you were speaking of your assassination attempt. Who picked you up from the airport?” Jean Rene asked.
“Don’t you know? Benjamin picked me up from the airport.”
“That son of a bitch,” I said before I could stop the words. “He’s working for Ronin.”
“That’s impossible,” Julian said. “Why...how...he was the one that tracked down Brianne and Josette. He’s the one that helped me get off the estate grounds the day my mother released me. Our car was forced off the road. He could have died just as easily as I.”
“My father never mentioned picking you up from the airport, never mentioned being involved in any attack on your life. So much has happened since the night of the attacks that we never asked for the specifics of your death. He called while Josette and I were still in the woods around the house, making our getaway, to tell us you were dead.”
Disappointment wasn’t the word; maybe disgusted was a better fit for how I felt about my father and his actions. How long had he been on the wrong side? Was he ever the friend Julian thought him to be? Was he ever on our side?
“He called to say you were dead but not how he knew. He said he’d make arrangements to have you buried but by your own word he didn’t have a body. He staged the house to look like someone had attacked it. I’m still not sure what that’s all about but I have a feeling that if my father is not running from Ronin for failing to kill you, he’s with him now.”
“Was Mr. Dupre the only person you told you were coming to town,” Constantine asked.
“Yes.”
I felt sorry for Julian. My father had betrayed him.
“It is a terrible thing when a trusted friend turns out to be an enemy, but evidence points to Mr. Dupre being just that. Regardless of the whys, or his location, we still have to prepare for tonight. It’s a little after ten and I was hoping we could arrive at the royal estate by lunchtime.” Jean Rene looked at Thomas Wolfe’s wife. “Lillian if you would please call the estate to let them know we will arrive around four and the number of guest we will be brining.”
“Of course,” Lillian said.
“I suggest we all dress for the day and then we can have some lunch. Maybe speak of more pleasant things before our story play its end.”
We all nodded in agreement, broke apart like a team going to our individual position. Julian was dressed and Mr. B offered to keep him company. Josette and I went to my room upstairs, my arm around her shoulder, hers around my waist.
“I’m tired,” she said hugging me a little tighter.
I knew what she meant. It wasn’t her body she was talking about; it was her mind, her soul. It was too much in too short about of time. We needed a reset, a break. We needed the whole damn thing to be over.
“Almost Tehila,” I said in her hair. I kissed the top of her head. “It’s almost over.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lupa (Second Edition) Page 34
