by Zara Chase
Zayd scratched his head. “What made her so bitter?”
“Blame my grandmother for that. She’s the one that married the wolf shifter.”
Vadim raised a brow. “Without knowing he was a shifter?”
“Apparently.”
“Then you’re right. He must have been a rogue,” Vadim said decisively. “No decent shifter would marry a human without her knowing what she was getting herself into first and going into it voluntarily.”
“I’ve seen pictures of him and can understand why she was smitten. He was almost aggressively handsome.”
“Is it possible to be aggressively handsome?” Zayd asked, smiling.
“You two wouldn’t know, because you both wear your good looks like they’re no big deal. You’re probably not even aware that you move with a feline grace that draws the eye. It’s like you have no muscles in your bodies and you seem completely comfortable with who you are. The pictures I’ve seen of my grandfather, on the other hand, show a man who’s defying the world and doesn’t give a damn what people think about him because he’s better than everyone else.” She frowned. “Does that make any sense?”
“We’ve known shifters with that attitude,” Zayd said. “Where did your grandmother meet him? Do you know?”
“Fort Myers is where they lived.” Vadim and Zayd exchanged a glance. “You look worried. Why?”
“Do you ever feel the urge to shift?” Vadim asked.
“Don’t think so. How would I know?”
“You’d know,” the guys said together.
“Do you feel any animal instincts?” Zayd asked.
She canted her head as she considered the question, a devilish glint in her eye. “Well, domestic cats always like me.”
“Talia!”
“Sorry, but this is all kind of weird. I figured we needed a moment of light relief there. And to answer your question, no, I’m not aware of any animal instincts.” Another grin escaped. “Put it this way, I’ve never felt the need for nights out on the prowl.”
Vadim threw a cushion at her. “This is a serious business.”
“Sorry,” she said with feigned contriteness, not feeling the slightest bit sorry to have made the oh-so-serious Vadim chill.
“Tell us everything you know about your grandfather,” he said.
“Well, in his human life he worked as a mechanic, but, according to my mother, he was a beta wolf shifter who wanted to be top wolf, like you guys are the top of the tree here in Impulse.”
“Who are you calling a wolf?” Zayd asked, blowing her another of his kisses.
“You know what I mean. Anyway, Grandfather decided the pack leaders were too stuck in their ways, too cautious, and he led a group of renegades who would show them a thing or two.”
“And let me guess,” Vadim said, gritting his teeth. “Their target was Impulse.”
Talia’s head shot up. “What makes you say that?”
“Because it always is. And because your mother, presumably thanks to your grandmother’s influence, taught you to hate Impulse because it cost her her husband.”
She sighed. “Yes, you’re right. The wolves, led by my grandfather, made a raid on Impulse. They managed to breach security but didn’t succeed in taking the place. A lot of lives were lost, including my grandfather’s.”
Talia immediately knew she’d said something wrong. She stopped speaking and watched the guys lock gazes. They were quiet in a way that sucked the air out of the room, frightening her into speaking again.
“What is it?” she asked. “What did I just say?”
“Tell her,” Vadim said curtly. “I’m not sure I’ve got the stomach for it.”
Zayd reached across to pat Vadim’s shoulder, cleared his throat, and spoke. “Vadim’s father was head of security here at the time,” he said.
She frowned. “He can’t have been. This happened more than fifty years ago.”
“Age in Impulse is a relative thing,” Zayd explained. “It’s also one of the reasons why shifters are so keen to get their thieving paws on the place. Due to the rare atmosphere, we only age one year to every human’s three.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” She didn’t try to hide her confusion. “How old does that make you guys, then?”
“In human years,” Zayd replied, “we’re both pushing ninety.”
“Was your father hurt in the raid, Vadim?”
“He was killed,” Vadim said, grinding his jaw and not meeting her gaze. Shit, he blames me!
“I’m sorry. Now you have double reason to hate me.”
His ferocious glare softened just fractionally. “I don’t hate you. It would make life one hell of a lot easier if I did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ignore him,” Zayd said flippantly. “The rest of us do all the time. It’s the only way to handle him.”
Vadim shot Zayd the finger. “Okay, so your grandfather married your grandmother, didn’t tell her he was a shifter until after the event. That would be enough to get him expelled from any respectable colony if the alphas knew, so we have to assume that they didn’t.”
“I’m sure they didn’t. It was a love match, by all accounts. My great-grandfather didn’t like my grandfather and refused to let Granny marry him. So they eloped. She only found out about his other life after the event and was appalled by it. But by then she was expecting my mother and in those days women didn’t cut and run, especially as her father had disowned her.” Talia shrugged. “She had nowhere to go and so she had to make the best of it.”
“Then your grandfather got ambitious and led that fateful raid on Impulse.”
“Yes. He was killed and my grandmother was devastated. She was also left, literally holding the baby.”
“Your mother,” Zayd said softly.
“Yes. Apparently there were repercussions when news of the failed raid broke. The wolves had been trying to mend fences with the Impulse leaders, but the attack put paid to that. The wolf leaders retaliated by confiscating all my grandfather’s property, leaving my grandmother with no choice but to go crawling back to her father, who never let her forget what she’d done.”
“No wonder she became so bitter,” Vadim said. “And passed her hatred of shifters on to her only child.”
“Yes. And history repeated itself. My mother was abandoned by the man she loved and never got over that, either.”
Zayd indulged in a graceful feline stretch. Talia watched him and opened her eyes wide with appreciation. It wasn’t every day that a girl saw such a lithe display of lean, hard, and unquestionably male musculature. He saw her watching and flashed a wink that made her blush. It also took her mind back to their bedroom the previous night when she’d caught them fucking one another. When they’d asked her to join them, she’d thought she would get to experience one or both of their cocks buried deep inside her. Had desperately wanted to, but instead they stuck to cunnilingus. Now that she’d regained her memory, she knew it had been like nothing she’d ever experienced before. It had blown her mind, taking her to places that she hadn’t known existed. Talia had loved the attention, but was eager to know what came next. Surely it had just been a curtain-raiser to the main event?
She’d been wrong about that. They all went to sleep, and she’d slept like a baby. Even so, she had been disappointed that they didn’t want to fuck her. She couldn’t have made her willingness plainer if she’d sent them a written invitation, but they obviously hadn’t wanted her that way. Not that she could really blame them, not after she’d tried to kill Vadim. But still, the rejection hurt.
“What type of jaguars are you?” she asked, just to show that she was broad-minded and didn’t share her mother’s view of shifters. “You look very different.”
“I’m just your run-of-the-mill spotted cat, albeit a threatened species,” Zayd said, grinning at her. “I was born and raised right here in Impulse. My buddy here likes to think he’s rare, just because he’s all black and his spots are only visible on
close inspection—”
“His mottled hair,” Talia said.
“Right, but don’t be fooled. Color morphism occurs regularly in us jaguars. He ain’t that special.”
Vadim had been very quiet since she’d unwittingly revealed that her grandfather was responsible for his father’s death. He now offered her a smile, full of ironic complicity that made her toes curl and her pussy leak.
“Ah, but you should see me when I shift, darlin’,” he said, his smile turning into a full-on sexy grin. “I’m as handsome as all get-out.”
“And modest,” Zayd added.
Vadim flipped him the bird. “Modesty’s overrated.”
“Do you think this Ed Finch who Mom’s so keen on is a shifter?” Talia asked.
“I expect so. Shifters would have picked up on your mother’s shifter blood, which would have led them to you. My betting is that it’s the bears. There’s a sloth of bears still near Fort Myers, which puts them close to Venice.”
“What will you do about it?” Talia’s breath caught in her throat as she asked the question. Her understanding was that shifters…well, shifted, when they fought. Surely jaguars would be no match for bears? The thought of these two lithe, beautiful creatures risking their lives because of her, especially when her ancestors had already visited so much trouble on Impulse, was more than she could stand.
“Vadim, you mustn’t—”
“I’m gonna check to see if Kane’s got anywhere tracing the guy behind Finch,” Vadim said, standing. He looked grim-faced and didn’t ask her what she’d wanted to say. “We’ll decide after that.”
* * * *
It was very quiet in the sitting room when Vadim left them. Half of Zayd wanted to go with him, to reassure him and make certain he didn’t take rash decisions when he was in a state of emotional turmoil. But he also knew that Vadim needed space to deal with what he’d just learned, so he let him go alone.
“Is he all right?” Talia asked, staring after Vadim and appearing endearingly anxious.
“He’ll be okay. He just needs to be alone for a while.”
“Could I have handled that better? I’ve upset him, haven’t I?”
Zayd sighed. What to tell her? He slipped an arm round her shoulders and pulled her sideways until she was lying along the sofa they shared and her head rested in his lap. Her hair fanned out across his thigh and he ran his fingers through its silky mass repeatedly.
“Vadim has only one purpose in life, and that’s not to make the same mistake his father did and allow anyone to attack Impulse.” Zayd shrugged. “Even he can’t stop the attacks, but he can anticipate them and ward them off.”
“I see.”
Zayd lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. “No you don’t, sweetheart. There’s a lot of stuff going on inside Vadim’s head, a lot of guilt he can’t expunge. It didn’t help matters when one of the kids Mikael healed a while back left here with something that led a journalist to Impulse. Vadim blames himself, even though it was the duty of one of the beta jaguars to ensure that the kid and his parents left with nothing that would indicate they’d been in Impulse.”
“The buck stops with him.”
“Exactly. Anyway, it worked out okay. Mikael and Philo are mated with that journalist now and have Vadim to thank for that.”
“Why is Vadim’s head so screwed up?”
“He’s had a lot to deal with. His mother was killed in a raid when Vadim was small. His father never mated again, didn’t seem interested, until just before that fateful raid when he met a human who blew his mind and seemed to make him forget everything else.”
“My God!” She sat up, a shocked expression on her face, and covered her mouth with her hand. “He thinks that’s happening again. It’s why I’ve been sent here.”
“The idea did cross both our minds.”
“But I’m not—”
“We know it isn’t you, babe. You’re being used, but you can see the similarities, can’t you?”
She nodded. “I guess.”
“His father was with the lady on that night of the raid when he should have been on duty. If he had been paying proper attention, the raid would probably have been averted. Lives wouldn’t have been lost, and Vadim wouldn’t have spent the intervening years trying to prove that he isn’t derelict in his duty like some still say his father was.”
“That’s not fair! It sounds as if his father was set up.”
“He was, no question. But he should have recognized the signs, just as we do now with you.”
She shot him a confused glance. “What do you mean?”
Zayd looked at her askance. “You don’t know?”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Vadim and I need a mate—a human mate. The moment we saw you we knew you could be the one for us.”
“Humph, you could have fooled me.”
Zayd was lost. “What do you mean by that?”
“Last night. You had me at your mercy, but you didn’t…er—”
“Fuck you?” She nodded, causing Zayd to flash a knowing smile. “Babe, couldn’t you tell how much we wanted to?”
“I didn’t exactly put up too many objections.”
“Darlin’, you still don’t get it, do you?”
“Enlighten me.”
Zayd sighed. “We told you before that our powers are waning. Every other generation of alpha shifters has to mate with either another shifter or with a human. Vadim and I need a human to restore our powers.”
“What, just one between you?” She moistened her lips and treated him to a winsome smile. “Can anyone apply for the job?”
Zayd laughed. “I suspect it was the same for your grandfather, if he had aspiration to become an alpha. That’s why he didn’t risk telling your grandmother what he was and take the chance of losing her. That was cowardly, but understandable. With Vadim, you see, his determination to prove himself overcomes everything. We weren’t even supposed to be on duty yesterday when we found you. We just went out to check on the patrols and to enjoy being out on the water. It took every ounce of ingenuity I possess to get him to fuck me while we were out there. And trust me, Vadim enjoys fucking and being fucked. Well, you saw that for yourself last night. Not many men could withstand the beating and the half choking I gave him, but if you hadn’t have been there, he’d have asked for it even harder.”
“Then with me…why—”
“You have shifter blood, sweetheart, and we need a pure human, otherwise our powers will be history. It’s killing us both, having you here but not being able to have you, if you see what I mean.”
It was apparent that she did. She reached up and traced his face with her forefinger. “You poor guys,” she said softly.
Zayd was lost. All it took was the touch of her fingers for his resolve to crumble. He cursed beneath his breath and kissed her savagely, nipping at her lips in his desperation. She rose to the occasion, threw her arms round his neck, sank her fingers into his hair, and kissed him right back. He pulled her onto his lap. Her knees spanned his thighs as she sat across him, his bulging cock pressing against her clit. She rode against it as he deepened the kiss and gouged the cheeks of her butt through the denim of her jeans. Thank Christ she was wearing them, otherwise Zayd wasn’t sure if he’d be able to resist going the distance. His need for her transcended everything else to such an extent that he feared for his sanity.
“Looks to me like you need some help with that,” she said when he broke the kiss, flicking a finger across his erection.
“You volunteering?”
“I could be persuaded, especially since I appear to be the cause of it.”
Zayd folded his arms behind his head and sat back. “Be my guest, babe.”
She mangled her lower lip between her teeth, tilted her head, and smiled at him. “Let’s see if I remember how this goes.”
She unfastened the snap to his jeans, unzipped him, and caught his cock as it sprang free,
pulsating with need. Her eyes widened and she did that cute thing with her tongue, running it along her lower lip. Then she bent her head and sucked him deep into her mouth. Unable to remain passive, Zayd slipped both hands beneath her top and sought out her unfettered tits. Her nipples were rock hard and Zayd was filled with the desire to have them rubbing against his chest.
“Take your top off,” he said in an urgent whisper.
It flew over her head and landed on the floor. Zayd removed his shirt and cast it aside.
“If you shaved the hairs off your balls it would feel better when I suck them,” she said.
“Honey, nothing could feel better than what you’re doing right now.”
Zayd grabbed one of her tits and rubbed the nipple against his own, the friction thrilling enough to make his cock expand even more. Her soft curves thumped in thrilling contrast against the hard planes of his chest. They both sighed, but before he got carried away, Zayd dropped her breast again, not prepared to risk escalating his need. He pushed her head toward his throbbing prick.
“Eat it for me, babe,” he said on a hoarse whisper.
She sucked him into her mouth slowly, her lips firm and moist. Then she released him again and her tongue tantalized the underside of one of his balls, causing sensation to streak through him like a bolt of lightning.
“Hmm, that’s so good. Vadim and I didn’t fuck this morning because we didn’t want to wake you. The truth is, we probably wouldn’t have been able to resist fucking you as well, which is a damned sorry state of affairs.” She choked on his cock, as though trying to speak. He pushed her head down again to prevent her. There was nothing anyone could say that would help. Sometimes being an alpha shifter was a shit job from which it wasn’t possible to resign. “Nip at it, darlin’. You know I enjoy pain.”
Her teeth were the most exquisite agony. This wasn’t going to last long, which was probably just as well. Zayd had never had sex with a woman in his entire life, but he’d played games like this with enough of them to know he’d reached his limit. He’d never been tempted to take it any further with his previous partners, but Talia was the exception to that rule. He ached to be inside her, was desperate to feel her sweet cunt closing round his cock, and didn’t dare to remove her jeans for that precise reason. Perhaps he could screw her ass? That wouldn’t count as fucking, would it? He dismissed the idea before it could take hold, having been told since he was old enough to understand these things that it was a definite no-no.
