by Zara Chase
“What afterward?” Zayd asked acerbically. “When you’re dead?”
“It doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that I might actually win the battle.”
“Wilson’s in prime shape. Your powers are depleted,” Zayd said. “He knows that so it won’t be an even contest.”
“Even so, I need to know you’ve got my back.”
Zayd sighed. “Always.”
Vadim crushed Zayd’s lips beneath his own. At first Zayd resisted, but that resistance quickly crumbled when Vadim’s tongue worked its way into his mouth. Vadim knew exactly which buttons to push to bring him round and it wasn’t long before Zayd was kissing him back, grinding his crotch against Vadim’s, placing his hands on his butt to get him even closer.
“Let’s get the others back in here and I’ll make those damned calls,” Talia said in a choked voice when the guys finally pulled apart.
Chapter Ten
Vadim draped his body over the back of a tall stool. All four limbs dangled off the ground in an elegant stretch. Talia watched with rapt fascination at his feline flexibility. Didn’t he know that it was rude to show off? she thought crossly. As she readied herself to talk with her mother on the speakerphone in Rafe’s conference room, she drank in his beauty like a woman dying of thirst, filled with regret for what might have been.
Get over yourself. It is the way it is.
Talia was conscious of the tense, testosterone-fuelled atmosphere, of Vadim and Zayd trading insults in an obvious effort to lighten the mood, of the walls feeling as though they were closing in on her. This room simply wasn’t big enough for all the alphas who pushed their way through the door. They took up too much space with their lean, hard bodies, rippling muscles, and auras of tough invincibility. Talia thought about asking for some privacy, but decided against it. This wasn’t about her. It was to do with the future of Impulse, the colony they’d spent decades protecting. They all looked super cool, but she figured they must be as wound up as she herself was—more so, even. They wanted to hear her conversation and had a right to know what went down.
“Where have you been, Talia? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
Talia winced and mouthed an obscenity that made Vadim crack a smile. He seemed to find her inventive repertoire of cuss words amusing. Well, good for him. She was glad someone found something to laugh about in this miserable situation.
“Er, I’m not too sure. I think I must have had an accident, or something.” Talia waited, more in hope than expectation, for an expression of maternal concern. It didn’t materialize, of course, so she filled the heavy silence herself. “I’m on St. Pete Beach. All I have is my cell phone and a few dollars in my pocket, just enough to get home. I’ve no idea what happened to my purse, or if I even had one with me.”
“Are you…just a moment, Ed’s asking me something.”
Talia shared a glance with her audience when it became apparent that Ed Finch was with her mother at ten in the morning.
“Ed asks if you need him to come and get you.”
“No thanks.” Like I’d get in a vehicle alone with him! “A friend’s bringing me down later tonight.”
“Have you been to the police, or the hospital?”
“And said what? That I can’t remember anything about the last couple of days? They’ll just assume I’ve been on a bender and tell me not to waste their time. I don’t have any injuries, just memory loss. So I guess I’ll come home, get on with my life, and wait to see if anything comes back to me. Anyway, I thought you ought to know in case you wondered where I was.” Yeah, right! “Why were you trying to get hold of me, by the way?”
“Oh, it was nothing important. Just something Ed said.”
This I must hear. “What?”
“He wanted the three of us to go out to dinner tonight.”
I’ll just bet he did! “Sorry, I won’t be back in time.”
“That’s a pity,” her mother said, sounding as though it was anything but. “Look, I have to go. Ed’s making breakfast.”
The dial tone echoed through the speakers and Rafe reached forward to cut the connection.
“Told you,” Talia said.
Zayd squeezed her fingers as Talia battled to overcome the hurt she felt about her mother’s near indifference. She ought to be used to it by now, but it still got to her. If Talia ever had a child of her own she’d smother it with love and wouldn’t care how embarrassing she was with her public displays of affection. Anything was better than feeling resented simply for being alive.
The call to Wilson went precisely as Rafe had predicted. He expressed more concern about Talia’s accident than her own mother had managed, which, she supposed, wasn’t much of a challenge. She assured him she wasn’t physically impaired and agreed to give him a personal karate lesson at nine that night.
“There’re several hours before you need to leave, Vadim,” Rafe said, slapping his shoulder. “Get some rest and preserve your strength.”
“Like that’ll make a difference,” Zayd grumbled.
* * * *
They took the boat back to the house in taut silence, none of the skylarking between Talia and Zayd putting in a repeat appearance. Vadim tried to think of something to say to lighten the mood. Nothing came to mind, so he kept his mouth shut and concentrated on driving the boat. He bashed it against the dock when they arrived back at the house because he came in too fast. Zayd merely shot him a look that spoke volumes and jumped ashore to deal with the lines.
“Anyone hungry?” Vadim asked as they entered the house.
Talia and Zayd both shook their heads, but neither of them looked at him. The silence was worse than if the two of them had been hurling abuse and recriminations his way. A shouting match he could deal with, but their cold condemnation cut to the quick. Vadim couldn’t stand it a moment longer.
“I’m gonna get some sleep,” he said, heading for the room he shared with Zayd and closing the door behind him.
He so wanted Zayd to join him, but knew that he wouldn’t. He’d been a broken man after the incident with the murdered human and it had taken Vadim a long time to win his trust. Now his lover was frightened that their relationship would go the same way as the one he’d had with the girl—that history would repeat itself. There was nothing Vadim could say to reassure him, because he didn’t know how it would turn out himself. All he did know was that he’d never felt more driven and yet impotent in his entire life. He had to do this thing. It was the chance he’d been waiting decades for to prove his loyalty to the colony and clear his family name of the slur that still hung over it.
Vadim threw off his clothes and lay naked on the bed, trying to forget everything else and focus on the night ahead. Zayd loved him too much to ever see reason. Talia might have shifter blood, but she knew nothing of the ways of the colony, of the fierce pride that governed the actions of all alphas. Win or lose, this contest would go down in the annals of shifter folklore, which had to count for something.
Zayd and Talia thought he was being reckless and selfish, blinded to their feelings by the prospect of glory. Nothing could be farther from the truth. How could he make them understand the force that drove him? Zayd pretended not to see it, but he understood deep in his jaguar soul that Vadim would spend the rest of his life feeling less than a man if he didn’t do this.
If it weren’t for Zayd, Vadim would be impatient to get at Wilson, regardless of his weakened condition. That was all Talia’s fault. He wanted her with a passion that grew in strength each time he so much as looked at her. He understood now what Rafe and Mikael had meant about something inside them changing the moment they first set eyes on their respective mates. It had happened to Vadim even before he’d pulled Talia out of the water. The feeling was so strong that when he discovered that she was part-shifter, he seriously considered quitting Impulse and living a human life with Talia. A prospect that had once been abhorrent to him now seemed almost desirable. Okay, so he’d still have shifter tendencies,
but so what if he couldn’t actually shift? Talia would help him through the pain, through the agonizing withdrawal symptoms, and they’d find a way to be happy with what they had.
No, it was better this way. If he had to die, he would be in jaguar mode when it happened and he’d fight until the last breath left his body. Vadim closed his eyes and imagined that Zayd and Talia were on the bed with him. The three of them were fucking, nothing more taxing on their minds than who got to climax first. He could feel her massaging his swollen cock, could sense her featherlight touch as her fingers danced across his chest and played with his nipples. Vadim could even smell her provocative scent and whimpered as her tongue whipped across the nipple she’d been pinching between her fingers.
His eyes flew open. This was too real to be a dream. Someone was actually in the room with him, doing the things he thought he’d imagined. He blinked, avoiding the moment when he turned his head to his left, just in case it really was all in his head. Perhaps it would be less complicated if it was? If Talia was there playing with him, the psychic energy it would take to resist her would probably finish him off before Wilson got the opportunity.
He found the strength to turn his head. She was there, sitting beside him on the bed, totally naked. She smiled when she saw that he was awake, but her fingers didn’t let up on taunting him.
“What are you doing?”
Way to go, Vadim. Talk about asking the obvious.
“The condemned man gets a final wish,” she said lightly.
“Unfortunately that only happens in fiction.”
“Then let’s play make-believe. What would you wish for, if you could?”
He chuckled. “You need to ask me that?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“You wouldn’t have any shifter blood and Zayd and I would somehow persuade you to be our mate and live out your life with us here in Impulse,” he said without hesitation. “You’d be living in a near-permanent state of siege with a couple of crazy jaguar shifters who eat raw meat for breakfast and have been in more fights than Mike Tyson. Two shifters who would adore you, who’d spend every second of their spare time pinning you to this bed and filling you with their cocks, who’d—”
“Sounds like quite a life.” She moistened her lips. “You wouldn’t have to work very hard to convince me.”
“You feel it, too, don’t you, babe?”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “All my life I’ve only heard negative stuff about shifters. I can understand why, given that my grandmother didn’t know what she was getting into. I always knew they existed, and knew as well not to talk about them. I didn’t think I wanted to know anything about their lives, but the reality here in Impulse has certainly changed that view.”
He lifted one hand and gently tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m glad about that.”
“Me, too,” she said, dancing her fingers across his chest again, a mischievous smile playing about her lips. “I’ve always felt there was something missing in my life. I didn’t seem to want the things that my friends did. It was like I was marking time, waiting for something, but I didn’t know quite what. The moment I met you two, it made sense.”
He snatched her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers with aggressive passion. “Yep, but unfortunately we’re forbidden fruit.”
“If you believe that things happen for a reason, that can’t be true. There has to be a way round it.”
“Are you fatalistic?”
“I guess. I’ve heard people gushing on about it only taking a minute to fall in love. I always thought that was sentimental crap, but now I know differently. I also know I’ll do anything for love. I might not be able to mate with you guys, but I can do the next best thing.”
He smiled at her. “Is this where I’m supposed to ask what that is?”
“I’m so glad you asked me that.” She offered him a wide smile that failed to reach her eyes. “The answer is so obvious that I should have seen it before now. You don’t need to get involved with Wilson. He’s coming to the studio expecting a lesson with me. I’ll simply whip his ass and accidentally break a few bones while I’m at it. That’ll put him out of action for a while and give you guys a chance to regroup here in Impulse.”
She sat back on her heels, looking totally pleased with the suggestion, like she really imagined he’d go for it. His already-fractured heart suffered further damage because she was prepared to do something so unselfish for him. He couldn’t allow it, of course. Alpha shifters didn’t hide behind their women.
“You’re not supposed to deliberately injure opponents in karate,” he reminded her. “It’s against everything the sport stands for.”
“Not even when your opponent has arranged for you to be thrown off a boat and possibly left to die?”
“Well, those are exceptional circumstances, I’ll grant you that,” he said, sliding his hands behind his head to prevent them from doing what they were itching to do and wandering toward her breasts. “But I still think it will be frowned upon.”
“Who’s going to tell them?”
She really was serious about this. Vadim felt the full force of her determination and wondered how he was supposed to turn her down without it resulting in a fight?
“Thank you, angel,” he said. “That’s a generous offer, but I have to do this myself. Besides, it won’t be karate. Shifters actually shift when they go into battle. That’s how it works. It will be jaguar versus wolf.”
He wasn’t altogether surprised when she leapt from the bed and swirled to face him, magnificent in her naked ire.
“Do you realize just how fucking selfish you’re being?” she demanded. “There’s a guy out there breaking his heart at the thought of losing you, all because you have some stupid point to prove. He’s terrified of history repeating itself.”
Vadim leaned up on one elbow and shook his head. “I know that, but deep down Zayd understands.”
She snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“I really don’t have any choice, Talia. I wish you’d believe that.”
“It doesn’t seem to matter what I believe.”
“Where is Zayd, by the way?”
“He’s gone out in a boat with one of your patrols.”
That figured. Zayd couldn’t bear to be indoors when he was upset. There was nothing Vadim could do to placate him right now, perhaps not ever, so he returned his attention to Talia. The anger appeared to have drained out of her and when she turned back to look at him, arms folded beneath her breasts, her expression was reflective.
“My grandmother was a bitter, emotionless woman, and she never had much time for me,” she said. “Like I told you before, any mention she made of shifters was negative. But once, not long before she died, she spoke to me about her husband. About how magnificent he was, about how much she adored him, about how she could walk into a crowded room and know immediately if he was in it or not without actually seeing him.”
“She was lucky to have felt that way, even for a short time.”
“That’s what I thought. She said a few hours with him was better than a lifetime with any other man.” Talia sighed. “She never did find anyone else and never stopped taking out her grievances on others. And her main beef was that shifters never seemed to stop wanting to fight one another.”
“Not through choice,” Vadim said softly. “It’s territorial.”
“What else are wars ever about?”
“You don’t understand how it is.”
“Don’t you dare keep falling back on that lame excuse!” Renewed anger ignited sparks in her fiery blue eyes. “I understand all too well that history will repeat itself in my family, just as much as it will for Zayd, if you go ahead with this death wish. Think about those who love you, Vadim, and stop being so fucking pigheaded.”
“Would you rather see half the males in Impulse killed or injured if we sit back and wait for the wolves to invade? We’re a family here. Don’t
you feel the vibes? We care about one another and everything we do is for the good of the colony at large.”
“Yes, of course I know that. I felt it the moment we entered the Cat’s Whiskers. There’s a sense of family that I’ve never experienced with my dysfunctional lot.” She shrugged, a little too casually. “Still, I guess you can’t miss what you’ve never had.”
“But now you yearn to experience something like it, don’t you, darlin’?”
“I’m an adult. I gave up believing in fairy stories a long time ago.”
Vadim’s heart went out to her. “Dreams can sometimes come true.”
“Hardly.” She shook her head, as though trying to dispel the heady atmosphere of sexual tension as their eyes locked. “Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about your stubborn insistence on risking your life for no good reason.”
“The welfare of Impulse is a pretty damned compelling reason as far as I’m concerned.”
“But you don’t have to put yourself in the line of fire.” Her eyes flashed a challenge. “Tell you what, I’ll fight you for it. If I win, we do it my way.”
Vadim laughed. “I don’t think so, sweetheart.”
She canted her head and shot him a defiant smile. “What’s wrong? Afraid you might lose?”
Vadim was more concerned about fighting her here, when they were in his bedroom and both in the nude. He was absolutely sure that if he had her naked body pinned beneath him, he’d never resist her. Problem was, he’d never been able to resist a challenge, either. Besides, he had a feeling she wouldn’t let this thing go.
“I’m afraid of many things, but—”
“If you’re so worried about your precious reputation and the way people view you here in Impulse,” she said sweetly, “it’s only fair to warn you that if you turn me down, I’ll let everyone here know it.”
“You wouldn’t!”
She placed her hands on her adorable naked hips and sent him a sultry smile. “Try me.”
Vadim sighed. “This is sooo not a good idea,” he said, leaving the bed in one feline bound, no arm use necessary to spring lithely to his feet. “Sure you want to do it?”
