Most of the guys were too busy high-fiving each other and saying hi to other students at the bar to notice her at the counter, but she could feel one pair of undesirable eyes following her closely.
The assistant coach, Martin, had done his undergrad with her, and when they’d had classes together, he’d never been able to leave her alone.
He was a jock—always had been—and a bully, and as he made his way toward her, it appeared he would never give up.
She swung on her stool to face him, hoping to appear bored. She didn’t need him making a scene with Alek. If she let him get off his usual moronic and sexist remark, she could probably get back to her evening without much trouble.
“Hey, lab rat,” Martin said, brushing back his ugly red hair from his starting-to-recede hairline. He was tall and still muscled from his football days but gaining a bit of a paunch. Not that she judged him because she carried a little extra weight as well, but since he’d called her fatty-two-by-four all through her undergrad, she thought she had a right to.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s get it over with, Martin,” she muttered, feeling Alek’s eyes on her intently. Hopefully, if she acted like this was nothing, he would sense nothing as well.
Martin looked slightly surprised by her bluntness but then drew himself up to full height, a flush on his cheeks emphasizing his freckles. “Heard you’ve been hiring some company.” He leered over at Alek mockingly. “If you wanted some top D to suck, you just had to ask.”
Her jaw dropped. He’d never been that… offensive. “I…” She didn’t really even have a retort for him, as the cider had made her brain a bit slow. She heard Alek stir beside her and put out a hand to try and block his way as he stood.
When Alek was at his full height, he glared down at Martin, who was shorter by a couple inches.
“What need do you have with my… with Talia?” He flushed slightly, swayed due to his drunkenness, but still managed to stay on his feet, looking fierce.
She couldn’t help gaping up at him in admiration for a moment. Despite everything, he really was handsome. And in the days she’d known him, he’d never been gross like the men in her world.
He was conceited, yes, and sort of delusional, but he’d never think of telling anyone to suck his dick. She’d bet that about him at least.
“Who are you? Her hired whore?” Martin spat, though he took a half step back.
“What is the D you would like her to suck?” Alek said in a low voice. “I’m not familiar with it, but if it is any kind of poisonous substance, I will have to ask you to leave.”
Martin snorted. “Is this guy for real?” He leaned into Talia as if to make his meaning clearer. “I meant my dick, doofus.”
Alek’s eyes flashed only for a moment, and then his hand lashed out in a fist so quickly that Talia could barely see it.
The next second, Martin was flying, spinning until he hit a table behind him, crashing down on top of it with a thud.
He let out a groan as his players rushed over to him.
“What are you doing hitting an old guy?” one of the players, who looked to be a freshman, asked as Alek shook his hand fiercely, looking like he wanted to take Martin apart.
Talia got up to stand between them. “Look, guys, come on. Martin was rude, but he isn’t that hurt and—”
“What makes you think you can hit our coach?” one of the linebackers said, walking up to stand toe to toe with Alek, as Alek pushed Talia behind him with one smooth motion.
“He was rude to my… to Talia,” Alek grated out. “And I’ll take out anyone who does more of the same.” He stared at Martin, who was slowly recovering. “Besides, he isn’t… old.”
Talia would have guessed that Alek and Martin were both in their mid-to-late twenties, but with a lot of drinking and smoking, Martin definitely hadn’t aged well. He had to be close to her age but didn’t look it.
“Yeah, why don’t you fight someone your own size?” The linebacker stepped up, cracking his knuckles.
Alek let out a snarl, not appearing to be at all intimidated. One thing she’d seen about him was that he didn’t seem at all averse to confrontation, whether physical or verbal.
“Wait,” the bartender said, stepping forward. “You can’t just fight in here.” The smaller man looked too afraid to say much to the football team but also terrified for his bar.
Alek nodded. “Very well, then. We will settle it with whatever feats of strength you use in your country. If I best all of you, you must go.”
The quarterback stepped forward, cracking his neck side to side. “Fine then. I’ll go first.” He took a seat at a table, then extended his over the wooden surface, hand up. “I choose arm wrestling.”
“Alek, you don’t have to do this,” she said, stepping in front of him. “We can just go home.”
“I won’t let anyone insult you,” he said firmly, taking a seat across from the quarterback. “Now someone explain to me the rules.”
Talia let out a sigh as she took her seat back at the bar, just a few feet from Alek. If she couldn’t stop this, if she had to watch it, she was going to need another drink.
She tapped on the bar for another cider, hoping the only thing damaged on the lord of winter tonight was his pride.
Chapter 6
Ten minutes and a few drinks later, Talia still couldn’t believe her own eyes.
“Yeah, you can do it, Bruce!” The football team cheered on a particularly hulking linebacker as his face strained and his arm trembled against Alek’s strength.
Alek, on the other hand, was calm, holding the entirety of the football player’s weight against his hand as if it were nothing.
Then, with a flick of Alek’s wrist, Bruce’s arm crashed down onto the heavy wooden table, and the bar hurrahed in surprise and triumph. Bruce, defeated, limped off, nursing his likely aching arm. In the meantime, a stranger handed Alek another mug full of beer, which he downed in a single swig.
Had she died and gone to Valhalla? Or some other weird male fantasyland?
The defeated members of the football team lingered off to the side, murmuring to each other and attempting to salvage their ruined pride. But she didn’t feel at all bad for them, given their history of being bullies on campus.
Alek, on the other hand, defied logical explanation. Yes, he was huge. And yes, he made most average-size men seem like runts. But it hardly explained his limitless stamina. Or his incredible strength, for that matter. It was like an adult had walked into a schoolyard full of kindergarteners.
The scientist in her was intrigued. The woman in her was more than a little curious.
Another teammate came forward, and Alek grinned with what Talia could only guess was sheer amusement at this point.
What was the end game here? Hope to wear him down? The guy seemed practically made of iron or some similarly dense substance that made him so immovable.
“God, your boyfriend is so hot,” a random co-ed exclaimed at her side between smacks of mint-flavored gum.
“He’s not my… Oh, whatever.” Talia cut herself off, lacking explanation. The truth was so much stranger than fiction.
Booze and body odor hung in the air as the throng of people eagerly watched the latest contestant lock hands with Alek and strain against his grip. And in spite of herself, she couldn’t help but notice the bulge of his thick bicep as it tapered up to a corded deltoid that seemed almost hewn from the picture of a muscular anatomy model.
Suddenly, it was too warm in here. Or maybe it was the alcohol?
Without caring that he was mid-match, Alek used his free hand to reach for a stranger’s offered glass and downed it. As he did, his Adam’s apple undulated with the long swigs, showing the muscles in his neck and the rise of his upper pectorals at the edge of his shirt. The crowd cheered with raucous, drunken laughter as he held his opponent back without wavering even a centimeter. Then, with a gasp of air signaling the end of the glass, his palm crushed downward, sending the player reeling off hi
s feet.
Clapping and interested gazes vacillated between Alek and her, and Talia shrank into her seat. If she could go invisible, she would right now.
She’d never been comfortable with attention. Especially this much attention. It was why she had chosen to go into biology, where she could work mostly alone.
“Okay, Steve, you can take him,” someone on the team muttered hopefully. They really should just give up already.
Maybe Alek had been some sort of professional wrestler or something in his previous life. Or maybe he was just cut from a different cloth than modern men, evolutionarily speaking.
Steve was huge, and the ground shook as he sat in the chair across from Alek. His slicked, thinning blond hair a stark contrast to Alek’s thick ponytail, he stepped up to the proverbial plate. With an intense glare from the collegiate douchebag, they locked palms. Even with the dim lighting in the bar, Talia could see Alek’s blue eyes light up, the profile of his perfect face highlighted by the light of someone’s phone as they recorded the spectacle.
Talia really hoped she didn’t wind up seeing this on the internet.
Someone drunkenly signaled the commencement. But instead of toying with his prey, Alek thrust his arm down, slamming the captain’s arm down so hard Talia heard a crack that was hopefully only wood.
With one final cheer, Alek stepped forward, raising his arms victoriously into the air while the rest of the team stood by, flabbergasted.
The captain, unwilling to accept defeat, stuttered angrily as the rest of the team went over to where Martin was still moping about being punched.
“What the hell? How…? What…? He must have cheated!” Steve’s voice got louder as he spoke. And as he did, he looked desperately under and around the bar table, presumably searching for some evidence of foul play.
But that would have required a lot more planning and knowledge of such things than Alek most certainly had.
“Ha. The lord of winter would never cheat. You are simply weak, human.” Alek turned to his opponent to address him, folding his arms as he did.
Talia put her face in the palm of her hand. What person spoke like that, even if they were from another era?
“How else would he have won?” another player asked.
There were a few murmurs in the crowd, followed by a few boos and exclamations along the lines of, “Give up. You lost!” from others.
Martin stepped forward with a few of the players, looking like he was done with the whole situation and just wanted to go home. “Give it up, Steve. We have practice tomorrow.”
“No. Something’s fishy about this. Why is he standing up for her anyway?” Steve pointed a finger at Talia, bringing her more unwanted attention. “What’s so good about her?”
Alek stepped up between Steve and Talia, glaring angrily. “That’s for me to know, and you need to just get out of here.”
“Ha,” Steve said, pushing at Alek’s chest, begging for a fight. “Maybe I should try her, huh? See what makes her worth—”
But his words were interrupted by a thunderous thwack as Alek’s clenched fist collided with Steve’s cheek. Defying physics, he flew off the ground, tumbling into several of his unsuspecting teammates and bowling them over like so many pins.
Groans of pain and expletives aplenty sounded from their direction as Alek strode toward them, bearing down like some Siberian warrior. He glared down at them, fists clenched and shoulders taut in readiness.
“Get out,” he said in a deep growl, and the defeated players swiftly made their way off the ground and out of the bar.
Talia had no words. Disbelief was becoming an increasingly common emotion for someone who had gone into a field of study where logic and reason was supposed be to paramount.
But, as always, Alek was full of more surprises.
He turned on his heel, indignation still in his expression as he strode toward her. In only a few steps, he was before her, and she had to crane her neck to look up at him from her seat.
All eyes were on them.
Alek reached an arm around her side and pulled her to her feet. Then, with what felt like a gravity-defying leap, Talia’s entire body came off the ground as his legs pushed off, his arm wrapped tightly around her, keeping her close to him. With a thud, they landed on top of the heavy wooden table at the center of the bar, and for a moment, her feet wobbled as everything spun, either from booze or from sheer incredulity.
But he kept her pinned to him, and she could feel his muscles pressing into her even as he raised a triumphant fist to the sky that seemed to almost scrape the high roof of the bar.
“I am the lord of winter. And this female is mine!” he proclaimed loudly to the curiously watching bar-goers. There was a cheer, but before Talia could extricate herself and somehow disappear, Alek pulled her toward him. Then everything seemed to go in slow motion, just as his lips crashed over hers in a possessive, all-consuming kiss.
The people roared with even more drunken amusement, and she could hear glasses clinking and the snap of phone cameras.
No, stop cheering. Stop it!
But even as her logical brain wanted to scold the commiserating crowd that was accomplice to Alek’s odd declaration, her entire body seemed to melt beneath him.
His lips were soft and hard at the same time. One of his arms wrapped behind her back, supporting her so she didn’t slip. She felt fire tingling from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, and she felt a moan pulled deep from her throat as her hands clutched desperately at his shirt, holding on for dear life.
Then, as swiftly as it had happened, it was over, and he pulled away. Scattered applause and hurrahs resounded through the aging bar as Alek stepped down, then helped Talia down onto solid ground once again. She could feel a red-hot flush in her cheeks, and she tried to keep her gaze at her feet to avoid more suggestive glances than she’d already had tonight from anyone around her.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to run away screaming or run back into Alek’s arms.
So she settled for somewhere in the middle, striding consciously toward the bar to offer to pay for any damage. They weren’t supposed to fight, after all. But the bartender waved her away with a smile, exclaiming their little show had done more than enough for business tonight.
“Let’s go, Alek,” she murmured, looking around for him, swaying slightly as she felt the alcohol taking hold.
But Alek was already standing next to her, seemingly more content to follow her around than continue to bask in the drunken throng’s adulation.
As she turned to make for the door, the world seemed to tilt. Suddenly, her feet felt like rubber, and her legs buckled.
Maybe she shouldn’t have had so much to drink…
She tried another step and felt the ground fast approaching as she pitched forward, when powerful arms were suddenly around her. Then, before she could even comprehend what was going on, Talia realized she was in Alek’s arms, being carried toward the door and outside.
The cool night air enlivened her skin, but it only contrasted with the warmth of his body against her. Tiny snowflakes drifted in their lazy descent as only the sound of Alek’s feet crunching the aged ice beneath them sounded in the darkness.
“Do you…?” she started to ask, feeling exhausted and happy in a way she couldn’t remember having last felt.
“Know the way home? Yes.” His voice was calm as she watched little puffs of breath emerge from between his lips. She wanted to reach her fingers up to touch them, feel how soft they were again. Study them. But Talia resisted, knowing that once the booze wore off, she’d probably feel differently.
So instead she nestled into his chest, letting her body relax in his arms even as her brain buzzed with a million unanswerable questions.
She just needed to keep from overthinking the whole thing. Then she’d be fine.
Chapter 7
Alek honestly tried to pay attention to Luka and Dmitri the next morning as they filled him in with facts they’d lea
rned about the world around him, but his thoughts were still on Talia.
He listened to his friends, hoping they couldn’t sense that something was off with him. He was interested in everything they said, yet the man in him could only think about that kiss.
He’d kissed other women in his life. He knew that it couldn’t be the first time. Yet, despite his drunkenness, despite his triumph over the other males, something inside him had reacted as if that particular kiss was like nothing he’d ever felt before.
She’d melted against him, too, which was so unexpected, as she was usually asking questions or telling him not to call himself lord of winter. If he’d thought for a moment, he might have worried she wouldn’t be receptive.
Perhaps they’d both been simply caught up in the moment. If so, why was he affected so much?
He slumped, cheek in hand, and tuned in to what Luka was saying.
“No one knows about the existence of any kind of supernatural being. I believe they would be called shifters, no matter the animal. If they are around, they are completely separate from humans, except in some fiction.”
“I see,” Alek said. So how would he ever tell Talia about himself? Or was that even in the cards?
“You don’t need a fire to heat things,” Dmitri said, gnawing on a Hot Pocket. “There is a box called a microwave, and foods that go inside it are plentiful and easy to purchase.”
“There are simply stores,” Luka said. “One only needs gold, converted to money.”
“Interesting,” Alek said, though his mind could only think of Talia’s eyes, glazed over in pleasure, her lips swollen from his kiss.
But he had to keep focused. He had to learn about this world and conquer it. He had to make it safe for any of his subjects… He had to…
He put a hand to his head, emitting a low groan.
Luka sat up immediately. “My lord, is something wrong?”
Alek didn’t want to worry his friends or his subjects. They depended on his strength, his leadership. He hardly wanted them to fuss over a small physical problem. “No, I drank much last night and am feeling the effects of it.”
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