Charlotte

by Mima

  Rising, she walked to Ryder, drawing a short hooked knife out of the folds of her cloak. Putting the tip to one rib, she flicked her wrist. The skin gaped, red bursting free.

  Charlotte gagged.

  The Elder chuckled. “Stay then, and watch me bleed him past even a vampire heart’s ability.”

  Charlotte stared at the mess of her lover. Limbs trembling, using her hands to brace herself, she managed to stand, smoothing her pretty purple-blue dress. Wavering, she smelled the blood, and strangely, hairspray.

  There was a dressing table to one side, another door, and a small couch covered in more clothes. In the mirror lit with harsh fluorescent light, her face was milk-white, her hair vivid orange, eyes glinting silver. If she stood here, apparently this Elder would not attack her directly. She wanted to force Charlotte into revealing herself, appearing innocent in return. Perhaps she could survive if she just faced the crone down and refused her trick. But then she’d have to watch Ryder die. Would the Elder go through with it? Wouldn’t someone somewhere investigate a murder? Or with Charlotte as witness to Ryder’s death would she find some other evil way to kill her?

  One of her knees shook and she shifted her feet, determined not to crumple again. Would she go onto the stage, or would she face the Elder down?

  “It’s kind of like a train wreck,” she quipped, voice quavering. “It’s all too horrible not to watch.”

  “That’s my girl.” His hand snuck behind her neck, holding it firm and decisively. His mouth covered hers, lips pressing, tongue dancing, diving.

  Some sort of commotion arose behind him with the sound of splintering crystal, but it was hard to be alarmed with his body flattening her to the wall. Like in their waltz, all her attention was in keeping up with him, and very little was left over for her own thoughts. Her hands found his waist. The flex of his muscular core made her fingers nip at his shirt until she tore it free from the waistband. A wriggle of her wrists and she was under the smooth fabric to something smoother, warmer, more fabulous.

  At her touch, his mouth took hers over, and she simply had to surrender. Like in the dance, following had its own reward. Time became a whirl, and there was nothing but his body. He surged against her, jaw hard. She’d seen kisses like this in the movies. Passion. A man against her, wanting her, and oh-yes-indeedy, she wanted him back. His tongue chased into her mouth, and she loved how he stormed into her. She loved being taken.

  “I could eat you all night,” he slurred in his thrilling Euro-accent. “You’re like a drug to me, like something fresh and—” His lips crushed hers, teeth closing slow and precise and cruel on her lower lip.

  A squeak emerged, but the streak of pain did nothing except turn her whole body liquid.

  He pulled back, assessing her.

  The wall held her up completely. She blinked slowly, licked over her sizzling lip, and whispered, “More.”

  Wrenching her head to the side, he engulfed her neck, her jaw, pulling her tee roughly to expose her collarbone and one shoulder. His lips and tongue were soft heat, his teeth lightning. A summer storm, that’s what he was. His hips pressed into hers, rhythmic and male, demanding.

  What was she doing? She was ready for him to pick her up and nail her against the wall of a crowded, impossible room. She was ready to grab him by his fine mother-of-pearl buttons and throw him to the floor. She was ready, and she didn’t even know him besides the fact he was magic, riding the edge of nightmare.

  “Now Jacques, he’s one I never regretted.” Gram’s gnarled fingers brushed over a postcard of the Eiffel Tower. “I was only in Paris for a weekend and never saw a thing. My first hour there I sat down in a café. He stopped dead on the street when walking past. We talked until it closed, and then he took me to his apartment and made love to me for thirty-six hours. I almost missed my flight.” Gram tapped Charlotte’s leg playfully. “Times were different then. If you try a stranger out, you need to be more careful.” She tugged her lap robe higher. “Va-va-voom that man was prime. What a perfect vacation.”

  Ivor could very well be her perfect vacation. The one like Gram’s, the one she’d been so sure she wanted. Now that she was in the thick of it, however, it was more unnerving than she’d imagined. Nothing in this place was like she’d imagined. He wasn’t some middle-aged divorcé, plain and awkward like her. Apparently, he really was a wolf.

  His mouth sealed to her pulse and sucked. She moaned, as if he drew her heart up into her throat. The sound was so sexy and unlike her she shoved hard at his shoulder, the crystal chandelier coming into dazzling focus.

  “Ivor, a breath. I need a breath.”

  He stopped, but stayed pressed close. His big, hard body poured delicious heat carrying an incredible musk, and his muscles ran with fine tremors. “Come with me to my room, Charlotte. I’ll please you.”

  “Another dance.” Her fingers worked over his ass. She froze, just realizing where her hands had wandered.

  He smiled a conquering grin and pressed a hard ridge of flesh to her belly. “A fantastical dance, and then I’ll lay you down on silk and rub your skin with rose petals while I suck my mark onto your body.”

  Her jaw sagged open. There was simply no response to such a statement.

  With a toss of his artfully shaggy hair, he spun and pulled her back into the crowd. They seemed louder now, more vivid. She gaped openly around her, struggling to understand none of it was special effects. Her body moved differently, too, smooth and swaying, stride slower, wider.

  They reached the edge of the dance floor. The music was ethereal. His hand slid around her waist. She rose up onto her tiptoes, anticipating the glide. The couples moved with a dizzying, intricate flow, lanes of dancers intertwining, bobbing, twirling, floating. All different kinds of bodies swayed in glittering, gorgeous dresses, slinky, dazzling. Her favorite couple this time was a swarthy man with jade horns coming out of his jaw, curving inward to almost meet before his chin. He danced with a woman who had rear-facing, spiraling ebony horns, like the kind she’d once seen on fancy deer in the zoo.

  Ivor lowered his face and nuzzled her temple. “We have a problem.”

  She tipped her head up, breasts still throbbing, thighs damp. “I have condoms and I’m on the pill.”

  He chuckled. “Different problem. Her name is Isabella, and she’s a tad jealous. She’s also here.” He stepped away from her, unbuttoning his cuffs.

  Charlotte went rigid. The mystery woman! “You’re married?”

  “I will ignore that slur upon my honor because I am so new to you. Isabella is the dominant female in the pack and feels she should be my mate. I disagree.”

  He unbuttoned his shirt, and Charlotte lost the ability to speak. He’d shaved his chest. It was smooth and hard and golden, shining with a smattering of small pale scars. Her mouth filled with drool.

  “Hold this for me. It’s so hard to get back to my favorite tailor in Prague.”

  She took the warm, slick cotton automatically.

  “Don’t worry. She won’t touch you.” He pulled a tiny band from his pocket and gathered his hair into a ponytail. His face instantly became barbaric. He looked like he belonged draped in fur, with a club in his hand.

  “What?”

  A puff of air blasting past made her stagger. He was gone, taken from the side by a blur of mocha skin. Cursing and shrieks spilled everywhere along with several rolling bodies. The crowd on the dance floor scrambled away. Ivor rose from a crouch to face one of the most beautiful women Charlotte had ever seen. She had exotic features blended in that gorgeous American fusion of nationalities. She stood as tall as Ivor, her darkly tanned skin perfectly smooth, her nude body toned, breasts smaller than Charlotte’s.

  She tossed her wavy, silky cap of hair. “We had a date.”

  “We did. It went as miserably as ever and I ended it several hours ago.”

  “I decide when I
’m done with a man.” She moved with such speed, she nearly vanished.

  A flurry of thudding fists smacked through the air. They both staggered back. Red contact marks bloomed across Ivor’s chest and arms. He seemed unfazed, standing calmly.

  “You left me for that?” Isabella gestured toward Charlotte. “Intolerable insult.” She paced in an angry arc around him.

  “Sex isn’t a competition. That attitude is one reason why we never enjoy each other. You’re always trying to win.”

  She screamed and it ended in a howl. Every tiny hair rose on Charlotte’s body. She backed away with the whole crowd, who seemed to know to expand the fight circle that had formed. They paused. The woman’s head bowed. But it wasn’t in defeat. Her skin grayed, swelled, and shimmered like heat over asphalt. Charlotte’s eyes bulged. Isabella now wore a speckled-gray wolf head on furry shoulders, but her arms were a grotesque mix of human and wolf, furred and clawed and twisted.

  Charging Ivor, she flew claws first at his chest. He spun, kicked, rolled. Isabella tumbled, landing in a crouch. Charlotte looked away, embarrassed by what the position showed on the other woman.

  Ivor’s abdomen had two deep scratches. A bystander dove from the crowd to plaster himself on the floor, face rolling against a red splatter. His tongue lapped wildly at the blood. He groaned in apparent sexual ecstasy, body shivering, face slack.

  Ivor stepped over him, toeing off his pretty shoes. “Bitch, this is the real reason we will never be mates. You have no class.”

  “You spend so much time,” the wolf-head spoke thickly, “pretending to be civilized, I wonder if you’re even still wolf.”

  Ivor put his hands on his hips, clearly insulted. “Enjoying fine living is not a weakness.” He pushed his pants down, and a woman next to Charlotte gurgled. “I claim the best of both worlds, while you are caught between them.”

  He was too muscular to be like the moody models in Cosmo. His ass and thighs were sculpted with strips of muscle. The burst of sighs and excited chatter didn’t concern Charlotte at all. She was just grateful to have seen him.

  By the time she swallowed, he had turned into a wolf. A giant, furry, snarling wolf. Pale cream with soft brown waves in the ruff around his shoulders, he didn’t waste a second. He charged the half-changed woman. She jumped and punched her claws into his side, knocking his head with a kick. He rolled in a serpentine twist, locking giant jaws around her waist.

  Charlotte gagged when intestines spilled out of his mouth in a wash of blood. Like Mrs. Laconni’s Yorkie with a rawhide, Ivor whipped his head back and forth in a frenzy. More screams, not all of which were horrified, erupted from the crowd as the blood flew in a wide splatter, hitting several people. Isabella beat on his head and gouged at his eyes, but he lunged up high on his back legs, tossing his head up, her body following like a flopping doll.

  Then he brought her down. A snap echoed through the room, Isabella’s legs landing askew, still. The once-elegant crowd went wild with bloodlust, jumping and cheering. Ivor’s muzzle was covered with wet gunk as he raised it up and howled.

  Charlotte had never heard a wolf howl in person before. It didn’t sound anything like a classic woo-ooo-ooo. It sounded like demons from Hell were hunting for her soul. The fight circle gave and people mobbed him. Some fell to their knees and buried their hands and faces in Isabella’s torn body. Others rubbed Ivor’s head as if praising a family pet. The orchestra started to play again, a lively song this time.

  Charlotte was buffeted by all the people pressing forward. Her hands hurt. She looked down, and the shirt was clutched so tightly in her bone-white grip she’d pleated the fabric. Turning, she fought her way against the flow.

  In the carpeted hall outside the ballroom, she collapsed onto one of the lounges. It was raspberry-striped satin, firm and cool. The spots started to fade from her vision. Her throat was parched, but she didn’t dare re-enter for one of the pretty crystal goblets.

  “I’m sorry if the violence disturbed you.”

  She shrieked, body jerking so hard her ass cleared the chair. Ivor stood before her, nude, a black bruise on his temple and a purple one across half his ribs. She thrust the shirt at him.

  He took it and put it on without commenting on the pleats. Leaving it unbuttoned, he stood before her, silent.

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t think there’s going to be any more dancing for a while. That crowd gets ridiculous when blood is spilled.” He looked off down the empty hall. “We could try the nightclub, but I find such dancing primitive.”

  Charlotte pushed a trembling hand against her mouth, trying to keep from staring at his genitals. “You just killed a woman.”

  Ivor pulled his hands through his hair. “I certainly did not. It takes more than a gut wound to kill a werewolf.”

  “I heard you break her spine.”

  He nodded. “She’ll heal. And tomorrow I’ll enjoy her submission.” He snorted. “It won’t last, but I’ll enjoy it for a short while.”

  With a sigh he sat beside her on the chaise. His legs stretched before him, relaxed. “I would have wished for a more beautiful introduction to our world, but we can be a brutal people. There are laws, Charlotte. There are police, of a sort, and protections against beings like Isabella. And you, actually. Rules you’ll have to learn, with your power to compel.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  He looked at her, calm. “You don’t have a choice. It is who you are. When you stepped foot on this deck, you entered the fantastical world.”

  “I didn’t know.” She laced her hands together. “I wanted some fun.”

  He put a hand over the top of hers. “Let’s go. I’d like to take you now.”

  She snatched her hands away and stood. “Give me a break! You were just in a vicious fight!”

  He also stood. The bruises on his ribs and temple were gone. And his penis had transformed. This was the demand she’d felt against the wall. It was tall and upright, swollen and tight.

  “Shit!” Charlotte stared at him, unable to look away. That would never fit inside her.

  Ivor crossed his arms. “Charlotte, you may go back inside the ballroom, mingle and enjoy Fae fruit. We’ll talk, exchange numbers. I’ll introduce you to another moon fairy I know, a frostling.”

  He lowered his hands. One cupped his testicles as another circled his base and angled his erection toward her. His voice fell to a hoarse whisper. “Or you can run and get the fuck you were begging for when I first saw you perched at the bar, ready and open.”

  Lava tickled the tender skin between her thighs. Her breasts burst with heat, and her fingers curled into her palms against the need to reach and touch the part of him he offered. She met his intent cobalt gaze. He had turned into an animal. He was capable of killing her. He’d smiled and kissed and danced with her. He’d warned her.

  “The night is for the bold.” His voice was a low bass. “I want you to run.”

  Every feminine instinct in her body came alive. She turned and ran. As she skittered around the corner, it occurred to her that running from a werewolf was not a winning proposition. But she lifted her knees and dug forward, charging toward the night air.

  Her rope-soled sandals slid wildly on the wooden decking. Arms windmilling, she turned away from the bar where she’d met Ivor and headed farther down the ship. Her mind slid along the wall, studying each joist and door as a possibility for hiding. Her shoulders weighed with his impending presence.

  The deck opened up into a sunning area, rows of plastic chaises spaced precisely. She surged in among them and threw herself down behind one, huddled in as small a ball as her heaving lungs allowed.

  Within three heartbeats, his voice came from right next to her. “Good girl, Charlotte. Very well done.”

  She sucked in air to scream, but he plastered his hand to the middle of her back.
The chilled floor mashed her face. Her skirt was tossed over her head, and even the dim moonlight disappeared.

  “A slip. I approve.”

  His hands smoothed her silky slip into a wad around her hips. Gripping the cotton of her granny panties, he twisted and ripped. The waistband burned into her skin but held. It didn’t matter, because she felt open air on her bum. Then she felt the warm flow of his breath. Folded over on her knees, her ass presented like a giant lewd peach, and her breath sawing loudly from under her skirt, Charlotte had never imagined her first intimate moment with a man would be so crazy.

  The wolf had danced, fought, then chased her. And she loved it. She lifted her hips off her heels, arching her back.

  His finger slid between her cheeks straight into her channel with natural ease. Her hips bucked up in shock, which just drove him deeper.

  Holy guacamole. She froze. He didn’t. The next several moments were spent shivering while he pumped one long gentle finger in and out of her body.

  When her hips started to follow the stroke of his hand, he added two more fingers. She cried out, knees scrambling wider to accommodate the push. It was incredible. It was awful. It burned and sizzled and made her ache.

  His wrist twisted, his fingers surging in her with more force this time. The pressure and stretch of her skin faded, and only silken fire remained. She pushed back into his touch. He chuckled. It was obnoxious and sexy.

  His fingers left her, and moisture dripped down her thigh. He drew her up, turned her on her numb knees to face him. Sitting on the end of the lounge chair, legs spread wide, he gestured at his erection.

  “Are you prey or are you woman?”

  She licked her lips. His erection was so fascinating.

  “That’s what I thought. That’s who I want. Come take it then, woman.”

  She crawled to him, hands coasting up his thighs. The scent of her saturated the air. Kneeling between his legs, she studied the small slit at the top of him, the veins, the round scrotum hanging below. Where to touch first? She looked at him.