To the Edge and Back [The Royal Wolves] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Honor James

  Rubbing his palms together again, he shifted. “In the late fall of 1818 the Palace was attacked during the night before my parents’ anniversary celebration. The rebels timed it perfectly since all our relatives were there to attend and celebrate with them. All our cousins, aunts, uncles, and everyone else were there,” he murmured softly. “They were all attacked before anyone knew what was going on. My brothers and I got lucky and a maid sneaked us out through the hidden tunnels that were built into the place for the Royal family’s security.”

  Shifting, he got to his feet and began to pace. “Laszlo, my oldest brother, snuck us away from her in the night with money she’d managed to retrieve from one of the many stashes my father had in the Palace. We went to England and, for about ten years, lived with a distant, distant cousin that had no claim on the Crown. After that time we moved to the States and took up residence in New York. Since then we’ve lived here. We’ve never let it be known we’re here. We haven’t hidden, but we haven’t put it out that we’re of the Royal line.”

  Stopping by the window, he stared out into the night and sighed. “I’m the youngest son. I’ll never have a claim on the Crown and I never wanted one. Laszlo was being groomed for the position as crown prince and, once he wed, king, upon my father abdicating the throne to him. He is the man for that position and not a one of us has ever wanted to take it from him. Should he decide to bring the Wolf back under Royal rule, he’ll do it with us at his side, but he’ll be the one to lead.”

  Smiling faintly, he turned to glance at her before shrugging. “As to the rest of it…” Now he was nervous again. “He was right on another matter, I think, especially if he scented me on you,” he said, moving to sit across from her again.

  “A Wolf finds his mate usually in a chance meeting, the barest of glances, perhaps a brief encounter, but the thing that lets us know for sure are the dreams. We dream of our mate, usually sexual, but with enough time we can control them to some degree and learn about our other half. I’m guessing from your expression that you know what I’m talking about,” he guessed softly as he watched the emotions chase over her face.

  Mina swallowed hard and leaned back heavily against the worn but clean couch. “So that wasn’t just me imagining things?” She whispered, “But you don’t like me, I mean at all. You hate humans, and face it, Mr. Farkas, that is what I am.” She felt weird calling him Mr. anything, but he hadn’t asked her to call him Janos, and now even more than before she had to ensure she didn’t break protocol. He was a prince, for the love of god.

  Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. “I don’t hate humans,” he said again. “I work with a lot of humans. I even have several I consider friends. I made a comment about Max in particular because he was being an ass,” Janos told her softly. Then his mind latched onto her words and he narrowed his eyes slightly. “So you have been having dreams?” he asked carefully.

  “Yes, I have been having wildly wicked dreams about you, and I thought I smelled you on my skin when I woke earlier, but it has all been in my imagination. I’m no one. I’m a poor working woman who lives paycheck to paycheck.” Well, sometimes she was lucky enough to stretch it that far. “I am a human, no one good enough for a prince, so I think that this has to be wrong.”

  “Fate doesn’t care what your life is, Mina, it’s who you are inside,” he told her, quietly shifting so he could take her hand in his carefully. “You weren’t imagining it. My scent is on you, permeating your skin enough that other Wolves know who you are. You are my mate, and for the record, I’m not a prince any longer except by birth. The Royal line has been practically destroyed and the Throne no longer rules. We’re symbolic now, nothing more.”

  Stroking her fingers lightly, he watched her carefully. “And you may be human, but that’s not all you are. You are unique and strong and special, Mina. And, for the love of god, can you stop calling me Mr. Farkas? I keep looking around for Laszlo each time you do. My name is Janos, and you more than any other has the right to call me by that.”

  Mina looked up with wide eyes and swallowed hard. “Janos.” She loved his name. She loved the way that it sounded and how it felt coming out of her mouth. “All right, please tell me the truth?”

  How in the world did she ask what she was thinking? “First of all…” She would put it in a two part or something. “How does this affect me? I smell like you, and the other Wolves know that I am your mate. What does that mean for me?” she asked and then continued before he could speak. “And what if something happens to me, what will happen to you?” Her mind was clicking through things. “What happens with you when you don’t want to take me as your mate?”

  “Because you smell like me they can freely attack you because I haven’t marked you as mine or claimed you yet,” he said quietly. She deserved the truth and it was the least he could do. “If anything happens to you I will likely never have another mate and, eventually, madness will take me down or, when I go mad, the Packs that want the Royals dead will gladly do it for me.”

  Squeezing her fingers lightly, he stroked his thumb over her knuckles gently and leaned in with a faint smile. “Who said I didn’t want to take you as my mate?” he asked her in return, lifting a brow, curious to find out her answer to that one. “And if you give me that crock about you being human and my stupid comment that was in relation to Max, I swear I’ll paddle your rear end until you can’t sit for a year.”

  Chapter 11

  She swallowed and licked her lips, a pain in her throat, but she shook past that and moved on into something else, something other. “Thank you first of all for being completely honest with me.” She squeezed the hand holding hers. “I don’t want you to go mad. I think I could like you.” She paused and smiled. “If you could not growl at me all the time.”

  She sighed and shook her head as she came back to his question. “You just didn’t seem as if you wanted to even be anywhere close to me. Me myself”—her face flushed—“I was having issues being close to you because I was thinking that I was having these erotic dreams about you, and I barely know you beyond your name.”

  “I don’t growl,” he said, but he knew with the deepness of his voice it often sounded like he did. “This is how I sound all the time,” he told her with a shrug. “Except for when I was younger, I really didn’t have any other tone of voice.”

  “I don’t like to be hit, even in playfulness, so I think that would end things for me if you were to spank me, even in play or…” She couldn’t finish the statement, at all.

  Up went a brow and he smiled slightly. “I was teasing, Mina,” he said gently. “I’d never hurt you and I’d kill any one that dared to do you any harm. Wolves are extremely predatory and protective especially with our mates,” he told her. She hadn’t said yes yet, which was making him nervous as well. “I know you likely have questions, so if you want to know anything now’s the time to ask, Mina.”

  “What would happen? I mean when, if, when”—crud!—“I say yes, what will happen?” She was so used to doing her own thing, to no longer have that available would be very hard on her. “I have always done for myself. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have an independent streak a mile wide.” She blushed as she looked at the pillow in her hands and snorted mentally. A mile wide, hell, her independent nature held its own planet. “So what happens to us, to me? How do you keep the others from killing me or thinking you’ve gotten weak?”

  “If you say yes”—he didn’t latch onto her use of the word ‘when,’ it was too much to hope for—“then I would mark you as mine. After that, if you still were willing, you’d become my mate in every sense of the word.”

  He watched her cheeks warm slightly, knowing she was remembering the dreams. “If you were willing, you could be changed, but I won’t lie to you, it’s hard on a human’s body. We’d have to fatten you up a bit and get you physically fit to withstand the change, mainly fattier foods than you’d normally eat as well as weight lifting to develop your muscle tone. After
that you would be one of us and you’d be fully able to defend yourself with a little additional training so that you know how to best utilize your new body. You’d still be you, but more,” he said, knowing she might be worried about that.

  She nodded and afforded him a slow smile. “I’m not saying ‘no,’ Janos.” She breathed quietly. “I’m not saying ‘no,’ so please don’t think that.” How could he “fatten” her up when she couldn’t even buy fattier foods than she had now? It was something she would just have to work out on her own. Maybe taking that second job at the cafe was a good idea. “I’m not saying ‘no,’ Janos, but I need time for the whole ‘in every sense of the word’ part of things.” Biting her lip, she suddenly found her hands very interesting. “I, uhm…” She twisted and wrung her hands together. “I haven’t done this before.” Whoa there, was that ever the truth.

  Staring at her bowed head for a long moment, Janos stayed silent as he processed what she’d said. Then it hit him and he had no idea what to say. Somehow he knew if he jumped up and down shouting for joy that his mate was virgin it just wouldn’t go over well. Not sure how that idea came about, but he figured he would heed it. That was, of course, unless he was way off base, and maybe she was talking long-term relationships. But how the hell did a guy ask just what she was referring to without being bopped for being an idiot?

  Clearing his throat slightly, he shifted and tried to see her face, but she wasn’t giving him anything to work with, her chin plastered to her chest. “Mina, I’m not going to rush you, but I thought you had the right to know everything. I know it sounds as though everything would happen immediately, but it won’t, I promise. At your pace, honey, if that’s what you want to do, we’ll only go as quickly or as slowly as you are comfortable with. I’ve been around a very long time, Mina. A few more days, weeks, months, or even years won’t kill me.”

  Mina nodded and finally she looked up at him. “How would you mark me, Janos?” She wanted to know everything. He had said she could be changed to be like him, but she wasn’t ready for that little kernel of knowledge. Right now she wanted to know about the most pressing things. What would happen to him, how he would mark her, and—“And even if you mark me, it doesn’t keep me from being killed”—she swallowed the pain and fear in that word—“by someone later, so what happens now?” She found herself warming more to the idea of being, well, his.

  “There are two ways to mark you. One is my scent and the other is with a bite. Not deep, not enough for the transition, but enough to prove to others that you’re taken. This will cause anyone attacking you to pause, usually enough for a swift kick to the groin, the heel of your hand to a nose, or even a good dousing of pepper spray. The last is particularly effective against Wolves because of our keener sense of smell. It will actually put a Wolf down for days,” Janos told her.

  “But you are right, neither method will prevent them from killing you, or even if we fully mated it won’t keep you from being a target. As long as you’re human you would be vulnerable to attack by my enemies and, unfortunately, there are a lot from back when I could barely spell my own name.” Reaching out, he gently touched her cheek. “For now, though, you need to think on what I’ve told you, so I’m going to head out, if you don’t have any more questions, that is.”

  “No, no more questions,” she whispered. Her mind was racing, and she couldn’t process what he had given her, much less anything else. When she looked up, she felt her head tilt and closed her eyes as she breathed him in. “Will I have dreams of you again tonight?” And please not Monday morning when she was sitting at her desk.

  “Depends on whether or not we sleep at the same time, but I doubt it. I have to work tonight, so you’ll be sleeping long before I even find my bed. And I have a feeling by the time I do sleep you’ll already be up and moving around,” he said softly. He wished that he could hold her in their dreams again, especially since he now knew just what was going on, but knew she likely needed a night without him invading her dreams.

  She frowned and shook her head. “That sucks. Especially if you dream of me Monday morning when I am trying to work.” That would be bad. “I had my first orgasm sitting at my desk at work.”

  She realized she said that aloud and blushed at her words. “I know that it really is a lot for me to ask, but do you think that you could hold off on sleeping between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.?” She couldn’t lose her job, and all it would take was something like shouting in ecstasy for that to happen.

  His lips twitched, but he nodded. “I can try,” he said softly. “But it only works if you drift off as well, Mina. If I’m asleep and you’re awake you might pick up a bit of my dreams, but I doubt it would be enough for you to start shouting in ecstasy. But if you nod off, I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.” As much as he could, that was. She was a delicious bit that he’d gladly nibble on, but not if he knew it would get him in trouble.

  “I was wide awake that first time, Janos.” Her lips twitched in happiness and then she shook her head. “I like those dreams, however,” she admitted to him and then sighed. “I know you have a lot to do, so go ahead. I need to think about everything that is going on, all right?” She hadn’t let his hand go. She liked to touch him, a lot.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Mina?” he asked her softly, shifting just a little further forward so he was perched right on the edge of the chair. “This has been a lot to take in, and I don’t like leaving you if you’re upset.” Shifting, he sat next to her, one leg bent up onto the cushion so he was facing her but not too close. Reaching out, gently he brushed back a piece of her hair. “Tell me you’re fine and make me believe it and I’ll take off.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that I am fine.” She looked at him and nodded. “I really am fine, Janos. It is a lot to take in and it changes my life completely.” She sighed. “It’s an adjustment that I will need to make, but it’s still an adjustment.”

  Her hand lay on his knee as she faced and looked at him. “Tomorrow is work for me, so I will be fine. I will talk to you in a week?” She didn’t have a phone where he could call her, and she was so tired when she normally finally made it home that she didn’t stay up late enough for him to come and visit her. “Be safe, Janos. I promise you that I am fine.”

  Trailing his fingers back across her cheek, he nodded. “All right,” he said softly though a little hesitantly. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her for a moment before heading for the door. “I’ll say good night to you then, Mina. Lock the door after me, please, so I know you’re safe tonight?” he asked as he pulled the door open and scanned the hall, scenting the air.

  She moved with him to the door and watched as he scented the air. “I will lock all the locks behind you, Janos. Thank you for coming and explaining to me in person.” She nodded and grinned. “Now go. You have a bar to run, and I’m sure that they are even now likely demanding my head on a platter because I’m keeping you.” One hand on the door, she leaned against it. “I will see you next Sunday. Next Saturday, of course, is laundry day, so a week from today, okay?”

  Looking down at her, he nodded slowly and handed her a card. “That’s my personal line. If anything happens, call me, Mina. I mean it. Please,” he added to soften what came out sounding like an order. “Be safe,” he murmured, and, going on instinct, leaned down to brush a light kiss over her cheek, breathing her in at the same time, his body practically shuddering as her scent poured over him. Moving quickly, he stepped back and stood waiting. “Lock it up, honey,” he said with a half smile.

  She kept the card and nodded, closing the door and locking all the locks before putting her back to it and bringing the card up to her nose, inhaling the scent of him. A grin crossed her lips as she murmured, “Now I’m sniffing things, too.”

  With a sense of purpose, she moved from the door and headed toward her bed. Now she wanted to sleep in it, now she wanted to smell him, and now, now she needed to think.

  Chapter 12

  The phras
e “week from hell” took on a whole new meaning as Janos was forced to stay away from Mina. It was also something he never ever wanted to repeat. Checking the time for the fortieth time in the last minute, he nearly snarled when a waitress came up with an order. Taking a breath, he did the order of drinks that the waitress had put in and knew he had to get out of there or he’d end up going rabid on someone’s ass damned fast.

  Passing off his towel, he told the bartenders to call his cell if there was a problem, but otherwise he was off the clock until further notice. He also told them that if his brothers called or stopped in, he was out and in a meeting.

  Grabbing his keys and jacket, he was quickly on his way to Mina’s. He hadn’t heard from her and he hadn’t heard anything from Miklos either, so he hoped it had been a good week for her. Soon enough though he’d find out, and she better damn well be fine or he’d be finding someone to kill.

  * * * *

  Later that afternoon

  Mina stared at the bobbleheads in the box and touched a finger to one of them. She set it off to nodding and closed her eyes against the pain. She had given them seven years of her life. It had been the only job she had ever had, and she lost it.

  It was Friday morning when “it” happened. She had just finished taking the order for Sampras on Nine when she was hit with the feeling of hands caressing and touching her. She bit her lip and closed her eyes. Standing, she moved toward her boss’s office as she said, “I’m taking a fifteen minute, all right?”

  Fred Storm looked up at Mina as if it was the first time he had seen her and nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He made a shooing motion with his hand and went back to his game online of killing trolls and the like. She hated that everyone in the office seemed to goof off, even when busy, but to be dismissed as if she didn’t mean anything, well, it hurt her on a deep level.