Hearts Aflame Collection IV: 4-Book Bundle

by Melissa F. Hart

  “This is important, love,” he said softly. “Where's the book?”

  In all of the fright and fear of the past few minutes, she had forgotten about the book that seemed to cause it all. After a blank moment, she pointed at the table, where the leather-bound volume sat so innocently, unharmed by the flying glass.

  The man who held her so carefully picked it up with reverence, sliding it into the inner pocket of his long leather coat, and with nothing more than that, he leaped out the broken window, carrying her safe and sound in his arms.

  ***

  When she woke up, Tara had dim memories of moving with great speed, of being carried by a man who seemed unnaturally strong, and of feeling almost shockingly safe. The remnants of those memories clung to her when she awoke, and it took her a few moments to realize that she wasn't in her own bed at all.

  Instead, she realized that she was sleeping on what felt like a feather mattress, tucked tight under a thick quilt that smelled of pine and sage. Startled, she sat up, and by the light of the fireplace nearby, she saw the shape of the man who had taken her.

  “Who... who are you?” she asked, her voice stumbling and small. She staggered to her feet, relieved to see that she was still wearing her flannel pajamas. She took a few lurching steps toward the man, suddenly furious, and he held his hands up.

  “I'm not going to hurt you,” he said softly, and she could sense real regret in his voice. “I'm sorry that what happened last night occurred, but if I hadn't stepped in, it would have been a lot worse, believe me.”

  Tara shuddered at the thought of the scarred, winged thing that had broken down her door, shaking her head.

  “This isn't real,” she muttered, pressing her hand against her throbbing head. “This can't be real.”

  “I'm very much afraid it is,” he said, stepping a little closer to her. “And I am sorry to say that you are right in the middle of it.”

  “I haven't done anything...” Tara trailed off when she realized how close he was. She should have been frightened out of her wits, but instead, this man's presence made her feel safe. She resisted the urge to reach up and pet him, pulling her hand back at the last minute, and his lips twitched in a quick smile as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “I haven't done anything wrong,” she continued lamely, retreating to sit back on the bed.

  It was probably the wrong move because he came to sit down next to her on it. In all fairness, there did not seem to be any other chairs in the room. The mattress dipped under his weight and now she was imagining how it would feel to lie down with him on it.

  “You haven't,” he agreed, looking at her with those bright blue eyes. “You've just been dragged into the center of something that by all rights should have nothing to do with you.”

  “And what is that?” she asked archly. She did her best to ignore how much she liked the way he tilted his head to listen to her and how the lines of his body made her want to touch him. He had stripped out of the leather coat, and now she could see how broad his shoulders were and how thickly muscled he was dressed only in a T-shirt and a pair of black jeans that looked as if they had been painted on.

  “A war,” he said, after a long moment. From the suddenly hungry look in his eyes, she thought he could feel the attraction between them too, and he levered himself off of the bed, going to pace on the floor instead.

  “My name is Mads Magnussen, the alpha of the Cairn Rock pack,” he said.

  “Pack...” Tara murmured. “Like wolves?”

  “Close. Men who walk as wolves sometimes.”

  Her memory flashed back to something that she had been sure was a hallucination, to the wolf that growled so terrifyingly and defended her from the winged monster she had seen.

  “That's impossible,” she stuttered, staring at the man who called himself Mads, and he smiled slightly. It transformed the lines of his face, giving him a look of such sweetness that for a moment her breath was taken away.

  He shrugged, or at least, he started to shrug, and between one blink and the next, there was no man in front of her but a wolf instead. Tara felt her jaw drop, and the massive wolf lolled out its tongue in a surprisingly dog-like smile.

  Hesitantly, she reached out her hand to the animal, still not certain that it was the man she had been talking to before despite what she had seen right before her eyes. The wolf waited patiently as she faltered, and then when she was brave enough to rest her palm on his broad head, whimpered happily.

  “How beautiful you are,” she whispered, and the wolf nudged her hand with its cold nose, so puppy-like that she laughed. Despite the wolf's size and strength, which she had seen demonstrated for her in the ruin of her home, she could see nothing but humor and good will in every line of its body.

  “I had a dog when I was young,” she said, talking almost to herself. “A big German Shepherd. My family got him when he was a puppy, and he was my best friend for fourteen years.”

  The wolf snorted, and if he had been capable, she thought he might have rolled his eyes. Despite his shape, there was no mistaking him for a true animal. Tara looked into those bright blue eyes and knew without a doubt that there was a man there.

  The wolf shivered, and there was a man in front of her again, his eyes bright and dancing, and a little bit of mischief in his eyes.

  “So?” he asked. “Have you seen enough to go screaming into the night?”

  “Where would I go?” asked Tara in amusement. “There's little enough left of my home after what you and that... that thing did.”

  Mads nodded somberly. “The angel,” he said, and there was a grim edge to his voice that made her shiver.

  “Angel? That didn't look like any angel I have ever seen.”

  He hesitated, and he came to sit by her again. This time she was ready for the tingle of attraction she felt for him, and the lurch of her stomach, but then he took her hand, holding it in his like it was something precious.

  “I am going to tell you things, and you must believe me that they are true. This is a story that you should not know, not as human as you are, but you deserve this story, you understand?”

  “You don't even know my name,” Tara said, a little startled, and he smiled.

  “I know better than your name,” he said, squeezing her hand with a surprising amount of intimacy. “I know that you smell of ink and paper, and that you had a cheese sandwich for lunch. I know that you keep fresh flowers in that poor home that I and that angel so carelessly ruined. I know that you use juniper soap and a lavender shampoo. I know other things beyond that, and you're worried I don't know your name?”

  “It's Tara, anyway,” she said, a blush coming up on her cheeks. She wondered if he could smell desire too, and the slightly slumberous look in his eyes made her certain that he did.

  “Tara,” he said, rolling the sounds across his tongue. He nodded, satisfied at something and continued. “There are stories that explain our war. These stories go back thousands of years, and they change depending on who tells them. I'm not versed in our history, not like a historian or a storyteller would be, so I will only tell you what I know. Once, there was a time when we hunted for the angels. We were the wolves who were chosen to serve, and from the legends of our people, we served well. We hunted, we tracked, and we killed, and one day, we simply refused to do it anymore.”

  “What happened?” wondered Tara.

  Mads smiled, a wry thing. “No one knows, exactly. The story I heard said that Fenrisulfir, the great wolf king of the era, said that the wolves would stand apart from the angels, that they would only hunt for themselves. The angels, as you might expect, did not think very much of that. Ever since then, my people have been fighting for their freedom. We are hunted wherever angels fly, and well, you suffered the result of that yourself.”

  “You came to my window and that... the angel came to my door,” Tara said softly. “Why?”

  He nodded at the book she had found. It lay on the small table by the bed, as
innocent as a novel someone had tossed aside.

  “That's the game changer,” he said softly. “That is what I've been looking for quite some time now, and that's what the angels want to keep away from me.”

  “It's a book to free things, to open doors,” Tara said hesitantly. “Mads, what do you need freed?”

  “Fenrisulfir,” Mads replied, and there was such a tone of reverence and hope to the single name that it made her ache.

  “He's our great hero, our King Arthur. He sleeps, but our legends speak of a time when he will rise up to lead us, to help us win this war.”

  “It sounds like a story...”

  “Did you think that werewolves were a fairytale before tonight, too?” he asked, amused, and she had to concede his point.

  “But what do I have to do with any of this?” Tara shook her head. “I... I just had the book, surely I can give it to you, can't I?”

  “I'm afraid not, dear,” Mads said regretfully. “They know of you now, and they know that you're with me. You cannot leave, not with your life, and I've enough sins on my head that I cannot allow you to come to harm.”

  It sounded perfectly seriously. He had saved her life. Still, there was something there that made Tara look twice, and for a very long moment, she stared at him, her dark brown eyes meeting his. He met her gaze steadily at first, but after a moment, he dropped his eyes. If he had been in his wolf form, she was sure that he would have tucked his tail between his legs.

  “You stared me down,” he said in surprise. “Do you have any idea—”

  “You're hiding something from me,” she said bluntly. She couldn't always tell a liar, but she knew when someone was keeping something from her, and she could see that was exactly what Mads was doing.

  “I don't know why you are hiding something from me, and I don't know what it is. However, unless you tell me the truth right now, I am going to walk out of here and if I run into an angel, maybe he'll give me a better story.”

  “No!”

  Mads voice was like a shot in the small room, and his hand shot out to wrap around her wrist. She flinched instinctively, ready to pull away, but despite his speed and his strength, he held her wrist so gently that she blinked.

  “You mustn't,” he said urgently. “They're evil things, Tara, you must believe me, and they would as soon tear you to pieces as look at you. You saw what the bastard I fought did to your door.”

  She studied him for a long moment, and she nodded. “That I believe. Now what's the rest of it?”

  He nodded, but he didn't release her hand. She wondered if it should have made her feel trapped, but instead she found herself holding it more tightly.

  “The rest is that I need you,” he said softly. “You can read the words of the book, can you not?”

  Hesitantly, Tara nodded, and she felt his grip on her fingers tighten before he relaxed again.

  “I need to wake Fenrisulfir, for my people, for my family. We've been hunted for centuries, Tara, and I've only ever known a life of war and fear. I want better for my brothers, and I want better for my cousins. The legends say that Fenrisulfir must be awakened to end the war, and that was the only thing that would take me from my family. I do swear that, Tara, on my life.”

  Mads paused, and when he spoke again, there was a resolution to his voice that she hadn't heard before. “I need someone who can read the book, who can say the words at the place where Fenrisulfir sleeps. I need someone who can open that door for me, and Tara, I am so sorry, but I think it must be you.”

  She started to protest. Surely there was someone else. Surely there was a man or woman more capable, more qualified, but when she picked up the book again, she knew there wasn’t. When it came to this particular language, this particular book, there were perhaps a handful of people who had her level of expertise.

  “I'm asking no small thing here,” Mads continued soberly. “Where I would take you, your life will be in danger, and perhaps even more than that. All I can tell you is that I will guard you with my life and every breath I have in me.”

  “Why would you do this?” she found herself asking, and there was that wolfish fierceness on his face again.

  “For my family, for my people. For our survival, and that is what your help would mean as well, Tara. I'm not asking you to risk your life for wealth or for fame. I would never, not a woman like you. I know that. If it were for money alone, I can tell that you would order me away. I'm asking you to risk your life for our survival, mine and my kin's.”

  She wavered. Something tugged at her, something strange and sideways and sly.

  “Prove it to me,” she said, her voice a challenge. “You've shown me that you are a wolf, now show me that you are who you say you are, that there are people who love and depend on you.”

  He hesitated, and she wondered if she had caught him out. After a long moment, though, Mads nodded.

  “Yes, you should see this too,” he said, sounding heartbroken.

  He stood, and in a single moment, he pulled his T-shirt over his head. Tara made a startled squeak, and for a moment, all she could see was how beautiful his body was, how the lines of muscles chiseled into his frame made her ache to run her fingers over them. Then she gasped, because his entire body was covered with scars, most faint white lines over his tanned flesh, but some as stark and raised as mountain ranges. There were heavy scars, twisted and knotted, on his right shoulder, and now that she looked, she could see a long scar that ran from under one ear down to his collarbone.

  He wasn't trying to show her his scars, however, and after a shocked moment, she realized that there were a series of small black tattoos over his heart. He knelt down in front of her so she could see them better, and now she could see that they were a series of triangles, point down, like a line of fangs across his skin. There were five of them, and she could tell that they were old.

  “The triangle stands for the Cairn Rock pack,” Mads said. “Each one is someone I could not protect.”

  He took her small hand in his large one, and he brought her fingertips to the first mark.

  “This was for Dag. We grew up together, and the angels killed him while we were on patrol.”

  He moved her hand to the second mark.

  “This is for Alfhilde, who was like a sister to me and a daughter to my parents. We took her in after angels killed her parents, and she went out looking to revenge them. She never came back.”

  Tara shivered at the grief in his voice, but even though a part of her wanted to pull away, another part of her wanted to draw even closer.

  “This was for Halli, who died laughing, and this is for Inga, who howled loudest of any of us and swore that she would outlive the moon.”

  Mads paused, and he had to swallow twice before he could continue.

  “This last, this was for Gyda. She was my youngest sister, the baby of our family. She wasn't yet eight when the angels took her. Do you believe me now?”

  Tears clouded Tara's eyes, and she found herself nodding.

  “Yes, yes,” she said softly, and because she did not know what else to do, she drew him close, pressing his head against her shoulder.

  She thought he would pull away, shocked at the pity and tears of a stranger, but instead he rested against her, pressing against her hard. His shoulders rose and fell twice, and though she could feel no tears, she knew that there was a weight that had been lifted from his shoulders, something that he had carried for so long.

  “I understand,” she whispered. “I will help you. I promise, I will help you.”

  Her words unleashed something inside him, and suddenly, it was not a grief-stricken man in her arms. Something indefinable changed, and suddenly he was pressing against her. She found herself holding on to him more tightly until it felt like she must crush him, and suddenly Mads lifted his face to meet hers.

  His mouth was hot, and when he kissed her, there was something feral about it, something so wild that it took her breath away. Her seeking hand landed at
the base of his throat, and she could feel a growl there. She had seen him turn into a wolf before her very eyes, but now she could feel the wolf that was always in him. It lay in the watchful grace of his motions, in the taut muscles of his frame and the heat of his body. It lay in his desire for her, and now she knew that it could be nothing else.

  There was a lifetime of doubt holding her back. A litany of “not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough” ran through her head like it always had, but in the presence of this man, the one who knelt on the floor in front of her and who was kissing her with such passionate tenderness, those words evaporated from her head as if they had never been.

  Tara flung her arms around his shoulders, and she kissed him the way that she had always wanted to kiss someone, with no fear and no hesitancy at all.

  Instead, it was Mads who drew back, and the look on his face was torn between desire and shock.

  “What?” Tara asked, suddenly fearful. Had she misread him, was she not good enough after all?

  “I ask you to risk your life for me, I show you things that you thought less than twenty-four hours ago to be mere stories, and now I decide that I want to do this?”

  He shook his head, and pulled away slightly, making Tara whimper in surprise.

  “I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I did not mean this. I have asked too much of you, and now... this abuse... Please, you must forgive me.”

  “Do you want me?” Tara's voice, strong and clear, cut through his apology.

  “I...can't, Tara, I shouldn't...”

  Her fingertips fluttered across his mouth, which was still damp with their kisses, and she felt his breath sigh against her skin.

  “I'll ask you again,” she said, “do you want me?”

  “Yes.” Mads hissed the answer as if it was being drawn out of him with tongs, and his entire body went tense.

  “By God and all the saints I want you,” he growled. “From the moment you broke that vase over that bastard's head, I wanted you. I can smell you, and Tara, I know you better now than anyone has in your life, and I can say that I have never wanted someone more.”