“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You’re some psycho who sat down here and said a lot of weird stuff. I don’t tell my name to strangers, let alone deranged ones.”
He laughed, a long, hard sound that surprised him with its intensity. All right, so she had claws. His nameless she-wolf wouldn’t look at him, but she’d tear at him. The new discovery made him obscenely happy.
Now she raised her eyes. For a full thirty seconds, she stared straight at him. “That was funny?”
“No, but I found it amusing just the same.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his card. With a flick of his fingers, he slid it across the table to her. “I’m sorry I seem deranged. This is a case of mistaken identity. I have a friend who looks an awful lot like you. I thought you were she, but you are fantastically not. That’s my card. I’m not insane. Google me.”
She picked up his information and studied it for a second. “Are you somebody I should know? I don’t watch the news or read the papers. I’m new to the area.”
“I don’t know that I’m somebody you should know. But you are going to know me. Count on that.”
“Look, I think you should go. It’s not right, you sitting here.”
Now that was a statement. “Why isn’t it right?”
“Because it’s not.”
He tried to keep his tone soft. “Look at me when you say that, and maybe I’ll believe you.”
She gripped the table in front of her. Her knuckles turned white, and she raised her eyes again. But he couldn’t meet her gaze. Not this time. Not now that he’d noticed her left hand. It had been in her lap the whole time.
The she-wolf who was his mate—even if he didn’t yet know her name—wore a diamond on the ring finger of her left hand. He couldn’t seem to pull his attention from the spot. It was a tiny piece of jewelry. Square cut atop a silver base, it caught and reflected the sunlight on the table. Wolves didn’t give rings to their mates. It was a human tradition that they saw no need for. But, by all that mattered to him, he wanted to rip that thing off her finger, throw it out the window, and go buy her the biggest, most expensive piece of jewelry he could find to replace the one she wore. Something that screamed she belonged to him, not to whoever had infringed on his territory.
Cyrus sat back in his seat. Protecting borders from outside invaders was actually something he did really well. He hadn’t gotten to be Alpha of Manhattan by not knowing how to wage war. In this case, he’d have to take something that had already been claimed by someone else. This didn’t bother Cyrus in the least. She was his mate, and she’d been placed right outside of his office building in the nick of time. There was still time to set this right. She wasn’t married yet.
The fiancé could be dealt with. He’d yet to find a human male that couldn’t be, and no wolf was going to challenge his claim in Manhattan. Cyrus took a deep breath. There was a faint hint of another non-wolf male on her, but not enough to indicate true, long-term intimacy.
Even better.
“Why do you want me to look at you?” She dropped her eyes again.
“Because your brown eyes are gorgeous.” By asking that question she’d shown him she had no idea she was a wolf. Was latency a genetic trait? Did it run in families? He was going to have to ask Lake. Twin sisters and neither could shift. He’d never heard of such a thing.
“Thank you. I guess. You really shouldn’t be speaking to me like this. It’s not appropriate.”
“Right. Do me a favor, beautiful. Tell me what I smell like to you.”
“What?” Her voice sounded breathy.
“Take a deep sniff and tell me. What do I smell like to you?”
She obeyed him. Of course she did. Even though she clearly thought herself human, she had no choice but to obey him. The dormant werewolf inside of her knew better. As his mate, she’d learn to tell him to shove it when appropriate. But not yet.
“You smell like…”
He raised an eyebrow when her voice trailed off. “Go on.”
“Like power.”
“Betsy,” a voice hollered from the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing?”
His mate jumped to her feet. “Nathan. Nothing.” Her pupils dilated, and she looked left. Simultaneously, her scent took on the pungent aroma of fear. It irritated his nose, and he suppressed a growl. His mate should never smell like that.
Betsy, the name he’d now finally learned, shoved his card in her pocket and jumped forward on the tips of her feet. “I’m sorry, Nathan. This man sat down. I don’t know what he wanted.” She grabbed at Nathan’s arm. “This is such a strange city.”
“Well, it won’t do to have you talking to other men. You know I don’t like that.”
“Yes.” She nodded frantically. “I do understand. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
Nathan, who was tall for a human but not a werewolf, shot Cyrus a look from the door. His dark-brown gaze started out hostile, but the quick intake of the other man’s breath told Cyrus that Nathan quickly picked up on which one of them was actually dominant. Most of the time, Cyrus didn’t bother with humans like this one. They were a waste of his time. But these were extenuating circumstances.
Nathan grabbed Betsy’s arm. She flinched, and Cyrus stood up. It took every ounce of strength he possessed not to dart across the Starbucks and pound the other man to the floor. How dare he manhandle Betsy?
His mate was hauled onto the sidewalk and down the street. Cyrus took a deep breath. Nathan was a dead man if he left a mark on her. For now, he’d follow them from a distance. Find out where they went and plan his next move. His latent mate had to be handled with care, but he’d throw that all away if he saw anything else he didn’t like from Nathan. Forget keeping their existence a secret. Cyrus would shift into a wolf and eat the man alive.
He smiled. The idea sounded better and better.
Chapter Two
Betsy Webber scurried along the sidewalk next to Nathan. If she kept her feet moving as fast as his maybe she would return home without bruises. His fingers dug deeper into her skin, and she sighed. She knew she should have made Cyrus leave—except she hadn’t been able to do it.
What was wrong with her? The second he’d approached her she’d become a tongue-tied, spineless wimp who hadn’t been able to look at him, never mind make him get up and go. Why? Sure he was handsome, but New York teemed with good-looking men. But Cyrus had been different. Sure, he was tall with blond hair, blue eyes, and a long scar down the side of his face that made him look…tough even though he wore tailored clothes that didn’t give the impression of violence, but rather tempered restraint.
“So is this what you do now? Flirt with random men in coffee shops? Have you returned to your slut ways?”
She cringed at his coarse language and bit her tongue. Defending herself would not do her parents any good. She’d agreed to marry Nathan to save them, and that was exactly what she would do. Even if she wanted to claw his eyes out. And it wasn’t as though he was wrong. Unfortunately, she had, in the past, been unable to control herself when it came to the opposite sex.
“No, sir. I promise I’ve not done that.” I haven’t. No one understood how long she’d fought to overcome that quirk of her nature. She wouldn’t be punished for it now—she’d done enough of that herself.
“Good.” Nathan yanked her out of the car, and half-dragged her through the front door of their rented house. “Because I’m not going to put up with any of your nonsense. You’re going to be my wife. Don’t forget that. Unless you want the worst-case scenario to happen.”
She shuddered. Betsy didn’t want that.
At least he only called her quirk nonsense—other times he used more foul language. It didn’t matter that she had her own theories about why she did what she did—sex addiction. She’d read that phrase somewhere and couldn’t help but wonder if it applied to her. Every once in a while, she just had to…do it. The compulsion to fuck overwhelmed her. Even though s
he knew that meant she was going to hell with a capital H.
But that didn’t matter now. She didn’t want Nathan sexually—at least not for the moment. And even though he’d blackmailed her into this arrangement, she might be able to find redemption by his side. Her father said Nathan was so holy.
Now, if she could just remember that—instead of killing him in his sleep—everything would work out fine. She really did need redemption. From moment one, she’d been living a sin-filled life. Surely her commitment would help her fix things.
She sighed and made her way into the kitchen. Usually, Nathan’s mood improved if she fed him. Her love of cooking and ability to create a fantastic-tasting meal was the one thing about her childhood that had turned out well for her as an adult. Her mother could cook, and she’d passed on the love of it to her daughter.
Betsy smiled at the thought. The hours spent together in the kitchen working side by side were her most treasured memories. Of course, she’d had no idea what her parents had been doing in the basement while she’d been upstairs stirring soups. If she had, she would have run for the hills.
“How does brisket sound?” Her mother had always called it pot-roast. She hadn’t even known it had another name until she moved to Manhattan. The things a country girl could learn.
“Perfect.” He spoke from the living room, and she knew he had sat down to start working on his emails. She let go of the breath she held. He’d be distracted for a while and maybe one of those correspondences would finally be the agreement to free her folks from their imprisonment in his family’s compound.
Her mind swayed to the man from the coffee shop. She still had his card in her pocket. Cyrus. It was an unusual name that certainly fit the man himself. Did that sort of thing happen in New York all the time?
He’d been handsome; she’d give him that. Even if he was stranger than an owl perched atop a church in the middle of daytime during summer. He had almost made her fall off the no-sex wagon. She’d noticed him the second he’d come through the door. And when he’d walked over, she’d stopped breathing for a moment.
What had he called me? Lilliana? Weird. She shook her head and started chopping onions. Had she preset the oven? She had this luxurious kitchen, but her mind was always somewhere else, it seemed.
Cyrus had smelled good. She closed her eyes and stopped chopping for a second to let herself revel in the memory. She’d told him his scent was one of power. That had been an odd thing to say. Only it had been the first word to come to mind when he’d asked her such a strange question. Why had he done that?
“Betsy.” Nathan’s harsh use of her name jolted her, and she lost her grip on the knife. Her eyes flew open at the same time she cut her finger. With a gasp, she jumped backward and stuck her finger in the mouth.
“What are you doing?” he yelled at her. He always yelled. Even something as benign as her cutting her own finger aggravated him.
Nathan yanked her finger out of her mouth and pulled her to the sink. The cut had already stopped bleeding. She never stayed hurt very long. Cuts, bruises, and even broken bones all disappeared with very little effort. One time when she’d hit her head, she’d been dizzy for a few hours, but other than that, nothing ever seemed to linger.
A doctor had once called her an anomaly. Or maybe her father had made up that story. Not that she recalled seeing doctors during her childhood. Now, at least, she understood why.
He turned on the sink. “Put your hand under the water.”
She could have told him she wasn’t burned. She’d been bleeding, but she’d long since learned there was absolutely no point in disagreeing with Nathan on anything. She stuck her finger under the cold water and tried not to wince when Nathan moved close to her ear and whispered in it.
“I think your attention is not where it is supposed to be today.”
She swallowed. “You’re right.”
“I think you were bothered by that stranger in the coffee shop. I think he made you feel things, inappropriate things that you shouldn’t be thinking about. I think that’s why you cut yourself.”
His voice was no more than a hiss, but she shuddered from the sick, creepy, crawling feeling that travelled up her spine—everything inside of her rebelled against Nathan touching her. She wanted to pull free. Standing by the sink with Nathan pressed against her and her hand stuck under the water was the hardest it had ever been to endure his presence. What had changed? It had to be her encounter in Starbucks. What else could have suddenly made Nathan so repugnant?
“It won’t happen again.” She fisted her hand under the water. It would be so easy to claw out his eyes. Betsy bit down on her lip. Where did those thoughts even come from?
“That’s right, it won’t. Do I need to remind you what my daddy will do to your daddy if I don’t tell him each and every day that you are obeying my ever wish?” Nathan ran his hand down the side of her face. “Do I need to remind you what they did? How they were selling babies? Taking them from their mamas and selling them to God knows who? Do you even know how disgusting that is?”
She did, actually. Her body shook like it always did when they had this discussion. She could still see the scene she’d encountered in the basement. The way the baby her mother had held had cried. Her mother’s stuttering response to where the child had come from…the guilt in the other woman’s eyes, and the ugly sound of Nathan’s father’s footsteps as he tore into the house. Why had she thought her parents needed a soundproof basement to make moonshine? All the lies, all the years.
“Do you want them dead? Or in jail? They’re only being kept alive because of you.”
She opened her eyes and relaxed her jaw. “No. Please don’t harm them.”
Even though some days—when she felt disloyal—she did want them in jail. Her parents deserved to be put away. But how could she allow herself to feel that way? They’d raised her, and she hadn’t been easy with all the stuff she’d pulled. And when her sexual needs had started…
Her parents had to find money some way to pay off the police from the time she’d broken into the mill, her father had explained. The whole thing was really her fault. Maybe if she had moved out when she’d turned eighteen? But then how could her mother have managed the house without her? And, besides, she had loved her parents. For their faults, they’d kept a roof over head and food in her stomach. Even when the incidents had happened, they hadn’t seemed particularly upset.
“I have been patient waiting for the toxins of those other men to leave your system. Soon, after we say ‘I do,’ you’ll belong to me. And then vengeance is mine if you even think of another man.”
“I…”
The front door flew open. She heard the sound of it crashing into the table next to the door. Someone would really have to bang it hard to hit like that.
“What the…?” Nathan let go of her and stepped back, his eyes getting huge. “There’s a wolf in the house.” He screamed like a woman, and she whirled around, the sharp, loud noise drowning all other sound until it stopped abruptly when Nathan charged out the back door toward the street.
Betsy knew she should be running after him, but she stood frozen to the floor. The wolf in front of her held her entire attention. He was beautiful, bigger than any wolf she’d ever seen in the wild. He had gray fur with black spots. His eyes were blue, which really stood out from the rest of his body. The creature focused on her, and she couldn’t help but stare right back.
Where had she seen eyes like that before? The knowledge hid in the corner of her mind, like an itch she wanted to scratch, before it quickly faded away.
She swallowed past her dry throat. Where had this tremendous creature come from, and why had he busted through their door?
He growled at the back door, crouching low as though he intended to chase after Nathan.
“I think he’s gone.”
This must be how it feels to lose your mind. Why wasn’t she running for her life? Why was she talking to him? Why did she assume he coul
d understand a word she said? A giant wolf stood in her kitchen—smack in the middle of Brooklyn.
He huffed. Or at least she thought it was a male. How could she know for sure? Maybe it was a female wolf. The wolf narrowed his eyes at her, and she put her hand up to her throat. Was this some kind of punishment? Were her sins going to be handled by some old-fashioned, primal vengeance? Had the universe decided to let her be torn to pieces by a canine with huge teeth? Her mind refused to accept what she saw. My what big teeth you have…
One second she stared at the wolf, and the next second he began to change. The face reshaped, elongating until it didn’t look the same. The body followed suit. In seconds, it had shed its fur and, in its place, was a human being.
She’d been calm—maybe shocked—when she’d seen the wolf, but now all the fear she’d not felt seconds earlier rushed inside of her like a dam releasing its water. This was wrong—this didn’t happen—wolves didn’t suddenly become humans. That only happened in fairytales and horror movies.
Except this was happening. She darted backward, hitting the table behind her. She banged her hip and knocked over a decorative lamp. Not that she cared. It was Nathan’s lamp. She hated the thing. Oh sheesh. Why was she thinking about the lamp when a wolf magically changed into something else right in front of her?
“Relax, princess.” The wolf-man spoke from behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around to look. Nathan had the right idea. Back door. Running. Yeah, all of it sounded fantastic.
“Betsy.” The man spoke again even as she rushed toward the door. “I can smell your fear. I get it, but you have no reason to be frightened of me.”
She skidded to a stop—she recognized his voice. An image of the wolf’s eyes flitted to her mind. Along with the voice, it all suddenly made sense to her. She wasn’t crazed. She had seen those blue eyes—on the would-be-perfect-except-for-the-long-scar-on-the-side-of-his-face Cyrus Fennell.
After pivoting, Betsy faced him. “You.” Her world shifted off its axis. Dizzy, she gripped the wall next to her.
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