by Aidy Award
Her eyes went dark and her pulse jumped in her throat. No way she was scared of him, which meant he’d either surprised her or she was turned on by this tiny act of dominance. Christ, he needed her in so many ways.
“You’re not going anywhere near Crescent.” His voice came out much darker than he’d intended.
A gorgeous fire lit in her eyes at being told what she couldn’t do. “Only close enough to kill him.”
Good God, he’d love the chance to stoke the flames in her. “You try, and you’ll be dead before you can blink. He’s a powerful alpha, and while I can see you’re not a delicate fucking flower anymore, he will eat your heart for a midnight snack. I can’t allow that to happen.”
Zara didn’t even flinch. “You think I don’t see you, Nikolai Piotrivich Troika, but I do. I know you think you’re doing the right thing to make up for some kind of sins. But if you’re doing this because of me, it’s not going to change anything.”
She’d fucking nailed him. He’d tried hard to bury the truth under the guise of protecting his family, his friends, his pack. Only Zara could dig through all his bullshit to the core of his real intentions.
He wanted to prove to her he was worthy of her love. If he could eliminate everything in her life that hurt, if he could protect her from the darkness in the world and himself, maybe she could love him again.
Zara saw right through him and declared it was never going to happen. His actions weren’t going to change the past, his transgressions, or her feelings for him.
He released her hair and stepped away. “Then why are you here?”
“Your mother, Heli and Gal gave me quite the education a couple of hours ago. You’re my fated mate, dummy. I’m not going to let you go off and kill yourself.” She poked him in the chest. Hard.
The tiniest ray of sunshine broke through the storm that Niko had been living in for so long. Was there actually a chance they could find happiness together? He’d run away with her right now if that were true. “Solnyshka.”
The hair on the back of Niko’s neck stood up on end. They were no longer alone.
“Isn’t that special?” Ramsey Crescent’s voice floated through the trees.
Fuck. Niko shoved Zara aside. “Zara, run. Now. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
Instead of running she slid her hand into his. “I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together. Don’t try to push me away again.”
Ramsey stepped out of the shadows along with a whole crew of enforcers. He snapped his fingers and four of them grabbed Niko and Zara, one on each side of them. “No shifting, Troika, or my boys will do the same and your sass-mouthed girlfriend will likely get hurt. Badly.”
At least he still had the advantage of no one but his brothers knowing he couldn’t shift. “Fine, but your enforcers leave even the lightest bruise on her, and I can’t guarantee they’ll continue to breathe.”
“I’d rather not have to hurt her. She’s going to come in very handy when I’m Tzar.”
Zara huffed out an annoyed sigh. “I suppose it will be fun for me to predict the exact moment when our friend here learns to pull his head out of his ass.”
Ramsey approached them and lifted Zara’s face with a finger under her chin. “Coming into your own, are you, witch? Good. I wasn’t looking forward to fucking a limp rag during our mating under the full moon.”
“I’m not the one who needs to worry about being limp.”
Ramsey moved to slap Zara across the face. Niko tore himself out of the hold of the enforcers and snagged Crescent’s arm in mid-air. His claws wrapped around the asshole’s wrist, poking into, but not piercing his skin. “Don’t touch her again or all bets are off. That includes your challenge. I would be well within my rights to destroy you for even threatening the woman I have marked as my own.”
Ramsey tore his arm away and pointed to Zara’s shoulder. “She bears no mark.”
“She does. Mine.”
“I never should have left you alone with her for a god-damned minute. I had every intention of making this challenge fair. I don’t want anyone questioning my rule, but you’ve changed the rules by marking her since we agreed to the conditions. I guess I should have expected no better from the likes of you.”
“If you were paying attention a little bit better, you would have known Zara has been mine since before I left to do my duty to the Tzar. My claim on her precedes your challenge by eight years.”
Ramsey’s eyes went wide and then narrowed into an ugly scowl. “Fine. It will be all the sweeter when I kill you and claim her then. Bring them to the compound.”
Ramsey turned his back on them, threw off the shirt he was wearing and shifted, letting his wolf tear through the remainder of his clothes. He howled and was joined by dozens more wolves in the woods all around them.
The enforcers surrounding Niko and Zara gave them both a shove toward Ramsey and the Crescent compound. They walked toward the elaborate pack house in silence.
Niko stared down at his hand. He flexed his fingers and then formed a fist. It looked normal now, but he hadn’t imagined his wolf’s claws a moment ago. He searched inside of himself for the mental connection to his beast. There was nothing there.
Zara grabbed his fist and peeled his fingers open until she fit her hand in his. She didn’t say a word, but her simple touch helped more than anything else could have.
If he hadn’t screwed around wondering if she loved him or not and taken her out of Crescent territory, they’d be doing a whole lot more than touching. Now he was facing death, and she wasn’t going to fare much better if Ramsey’s threats were to be believed.
“No one can say that I wasn’t a good host for the challenge. You’ll stay in one of our guest rooms until the new moon.”
“Sounds like I’m your prisoner.”
“You are not, but I won’t have you interfering in my pack’s business. You can take your meals with us if you choose, and of course you can always forfeit.”
Forfeiting a challenge meant a swift death rather than a full-out battle. “Good try, Crescent. Trying to get out of fighting me for your place?”
Ramsey didn’t answer him and instead addressed Zara. “You can stay with my recalcitrant daughter, witch. I’ll not let you out of sight of anyone in my pack again. Unless you’d prefer my room to get a taste of a real wolf’s bite.”
Taryn Crescent stood on the landing above them. “Don’t be disgusting, father. Come with me, Zara.”
Zara glanced at Niko, and he nodded to her. He’d known Taryn for years, and she often disagreed with what her father wanted for the pack, or at least she had before he’d gone off to serve the Tzar. Granted she’d been more of an unruly teenager back then and less the grown wolftress she was now. She sure sounded like she still had that rebellious streak in her and that gave Niko the tiniest shimmer of hope that Zara might be okay if he didn’t live through the night.
Once Taryn and Zara were out of sight, Ramsey muttered under his breath. “May you never be blessed with daughters.”
Niko covered his snort-laughter with a cough. Good to see someone was trying to keep this tyrant in line. Wolf society was a couple hundred years behind the times when it came to women’s rights, so it would be hard for someone as headstrong as Taryn to make any real change in her pack. But at least she was trying.
He’d like to count her as an ally, but he wasn’t sure he could. Later he’d try to sneak out of his room and check in on Zara. Maybe then he could see where the Crescent heir’s allegiances lay.
“It’s too bad one of you boys didn’t mate Taryn like your father and I planned. Then maybe we’d be on the same side of this pack war instead of against each other.”
“Hmm.” That’s all Niko had to say about that.
“I could still make that happen, you know. We can call this whole challenge off if you agree to mate my daughter.”
Once again, Ramsey was giving Niko an out to this challenge. This one was considerably more reasonable.
He didn’t want to fight Niko. A tingling sensation at the end of his fingers that signaled his wolf’s claws wanting to come out to play danced along from thumb to pinky.
Ramsey Crescent was afraid to fight him. That realization made him want to tear the man’s throat out right now. Niko would use that feeling to his advantage as long as he could. Intimidation was a tool like any other in his arsenal. He’d use any and every weapon he could access. “I have already marked my choice in mates.”
“Marks don’t mean as much as you might think in today’s society. My wolves have marked a dozen or so humans just so we could see what powers they might get. It’s been an interesting experiment.”
Niko turned and threw Ramsey against the wall. “The only reason you’re still breathing, you piece of shit, is my misplaced sense of duty to the ideals of Tzar Mikhail Volkov. But I’d suggest you think carefully before you spout your vitriol around me again.”
Crescent thrashed against Niko’s arm pinning him to the wall. “Take him away.”
Niko released the asshole and held up his hands to ward off the enforcers coming for him. “Don’t bother. Just point me in the right direction. I’ll find my own way.”
“End of the hall,” the closest one said and pointed toward a hallway off the main room.
Niko turned his back on the whole group, which was a hell of a risk after what he’d just pulled. None of them followed, and he found the door to what looked like a fairly nondescript guest room right where the enforcer had said it would be. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it, taking a few breaths to calm himself.
There had to be a way to stop Ramsey Crescent from becoming Tzar without risking his own life in the process. Niko crossed the room and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over a small desk on one wall. His eyes were glowing.
He wouldn’t hope for help from his wolf just yet. This was probably a fluke because of his emotions running so high. That’s exactly what he felt like, high on the best kind of uppers. His heart raced, his skin prickled with each flex of his muscles.
These were all signs his wolf might be re-emerging, but his mind was too empty for that to be true. No. Niko couldn’t count on any favors from the Goddess. What he needed was to find Zara.
When he was with her, everything made more sense.
He listened close until dawn came and the house went quiet as the wolves of this pack settled down to sleep the day away. If he’d been thinking a little clearer when he’d come in here, he would have left the door opened a crack. He slowly twisted the doorknob intending to do a little recon of the hallway.
Instead of an empty hall, he found Zara standing at his door staring up at him. She smiled and it took his heart and blew it up like a helium balloon.
She slipped into his room, grabbed him around the neck and pulled him in for the hottest kiss of his entire life.
The Couple That Slays Together
Zara was more than a little stressed out being back in the Crescent Pack house, aka Casa del Crazy. Last time she’d been here she’d had herself convinced that most of the things that went bump in the night were imaginary.
Since she’d learned that werewolves were real and were the ones who’d kidnapped her, she was more than a little freaked out. Ignorance was not bliss. It helped that Taryn Crescent was on their side.
She’d seen the more and more extreme plans her father made in his ambition to rise in power before this pack war started. She didn’t want her father deciding her future, much less those all wolfkind. The only problem was, Taryn didn’t see that her father would have to die.
Regardless of whether Ramsey Crescent was a human or a flying purple people eater, Zara was still determined to take him out and rescue the other women he’d captured. Since he was a werewolf, she was going to need Niko’s help to accomplish that.
It left her warm and fuzzy to know they were on the same side and had a similar goal. The couple that slays together, stays together and all that.
Zara wasn’t raised to believe violence was the way to change the world. Her parents were activists in anti-war movements, they recycled, planted trees, and baked cookies for protesters. None of which made a god-damned bit of difference. Fighting for human rights was important, no doubt. It was why she’d become a lawyer in the first place.
Saving actual human lives had become infinitely more important when her life and others around her were threatened. By freaking werewolves.
Okay. She needed to calm down about the whole werewolf thing. They couldn’t be all bad if Niko and the rest of the Troikas were shifters, too. Her best friend was a shifter now. Her sister was engaged to one. She would not judge based on their species alone, that would be racist. No, Zara would be judge, jury, and executioner only for those that used their agenda to spread hate and fear to gain power.
This was why she hated politics. She wasn’t going to play that game. Zara was going to make things happen.
Like right now. She snuck through the servants corridor and down to the main level of the house. Niko’s bedroom should be right outside the door according to the little map Taryn had drawn for her.
She peeked into the hallway and wished that the night hadn’t slipped away. It didn’t really matter, light or dark, the wolves would be able to see her with their fancy supernatural wolf eyesight. She needed to get her some of that. Maybe if she got Niko to bite her again.
Oooh.
No.
Maybe?
No.
She and Niko may be fated mates or whatever, but that didn’t mean she needed to let him all the way back into her heart. He needed to stay far, far away from the part he’d broken last time. She was willing to admit a lot of those tears were healed now that she knew so much more of the truth of what had happened.
Zara did have feelings for Niko. How could she not? But they needed to take their new relationship slow and build trust again. Which meant there was no way she was sleeping with him anytime soon.
Now that she’d settled that in her mind she slipped into the quiet hallway and steeled herself to go into his room. Where there was a big soft bed, and he was probably sleeping. Naked.
Stop it.
She reached for the door handle and without even touching it, the door magically opened with Niko standing in the doorway staring down at her with an amber glow in his eyes. God, he was so damn lickable. Zara couldn’t help but smile up at him.
Screw her resolve to be responsible with her heart. It belonged to Niko and always had. She’d been fooling herself to think any other way, and she wasn’t a fool anymore. Zara wrapped her arms around Niko’s neck and pulled him down to show him exactly what she wanted from him.
The moment their lips touched, the butterflies in her stomach rioted and sent up signal flares to her girly bits that it was go time. She wanted Niko more than she’d wanted anything else in her life, and that included chocolate.
Niko got the message real fast and groaned deep and low, pulling her body tight to his and sweeping his tongue into her mouth. He took over the kiss, sucking at her tongue and her lips, nipping at the corner of her mouth, and making her forget how to breathe.
“Zara. Goddess, how I’ve dreamed of this.” He lifted her up so her legs wrapped around his waist and pressed the door shut with his foot.
With Niko, she never had to worry that she was too big or heavy for him. She could revel in the feeling of being held in his arms, or pressed up against the wall like he was doing now. He grabbed her arms from around his neck and shoved them over her head. “I need you so much right now, but I don’t want to hurt you or scare you. Is this what you want?”
“I want you.” They both knew full well it was a risk to be together like this under their enemies roof, but it may be now or never and she’d already lost him once. She wasn’t going to miss any opportunity to be with him. “I want us to be together because we don’t know what the day may bring.”
Niko nodded. and brushed his lips against hers again in agr
eement. “We may not have long, but I’ll take whatever we get.”
His eyes roamed over her body, and he gripped her hands tighter in his.
“I’m not the same boy who fumbled around in your panties in high school.” He ground his hips against her and in this position she could feel every bit of his hard cock through their clothing. “I know how to make you scream my name when you’re coming and that’s only the foreplay. My tastes have grown quite a bit darker, and I’m ravenous for you, solnyshka.”
“I don’t care if you fumble or rock my world or make me call you ‘sir’, all I want is you. You’re all I ever wanted.”
“Would you like it if I made you submit to me, Zara? If I took charge of all your pleasure and made it mine?” The glow in Niko’s eyes intensified and the magic behind them swirled, until she wasn’t just looking into his soul. Another presence, a part of Niko she’d never known before peered back at her.
For the first time ever, she was seeing his wolf. His body hadn’t changed, his face was still human, but inside something so much more than a mere man peered back at her.
Zara’s entire body flushed as she warmed from the inside out. She was seeing his true self, and it was so perfect and beautiful. “I want you to make all of me yours, Niko. My pleasure, my need, my heart, my soul. Take it all from me and make it your own.”
“You are already mine. You always have been.” Niko growled and fangs extended from his mouth. “Mine.”
He bent his head to her throat and scraped his teeth across her pulse point, not breaking the skin, but sending a shiver through her whole body. She didn’t know why, but she knew down to her soul that she needed him to bite her, that it would somehow make her his in more than words.
Zara squirmed against him, wanting her hands back from his tight grasp so she could pull his head back to her neck and feel his teeth on her again. “Please, Niko. I need—“
“I know everything you need, and I’ll give it to you when we’re both good and ready. Trust me with your body and your heart. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. I’m going to take care of you now and for as long as we have together.”
