“So,” she started. “You're a werewolf.”
The smile he offered her was shy and almost achingly handsome. “Your people think so,” he said. “As you may have guessed, I don't come from around here. I'm from another planet.”
Apple thought about that for a second and nodded. She leaned against the door, toeing off her sandals. “Makes sense. Does everyone where you're from turn into wolves?”
He cocked his head at her. “You seem comfortable with the idea that I'm from another planet.”
“I saw a messed-up monster try to take out the Third Ward, and I saw you turn into a wolf to fight it. There are two purple-haired people who regularly fight demons and monsters running around town. Yeah, I find aliens pretty believable.”
“Point.” He nodded. “To answer your question, no, not everyone can do this. It was a gift that was given to us but we lost it over time. When I was born, only the royal family could transform into our ancient battle forms.”
“So... you're not just an alien, you're an alien prince?”
“Yes. On my planet, I was known as Si-Bellaron-Atreya-Naith.” A faint shade of pain crossed his face, but it passed so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined it.
“Si-Bellaron-Atrey.... should I call you that?”
“No,” he hesitated and then he came to stand close to her. He didn't not grab her by the shoulders again. Instead he took her hand carefully, as if afraid that it might break.
“Apple... Apple, you must tell me why you called me what you did, after the fight.”
She blinked at him using her name, and she shook her head. “What I called you? I don't... what do you mean?”
“Kashan,” he said, and there was a strange desperation to his voice. “Kashan, why did you call me that?”
“I... I don't know. Did I? I suppose it must have just come out. I don't know, I'm sorry. I've never said anything like it before...”
The look of heartbreak in his eyes was enough to make her throw herself into his arms, and for a long moment, she simply held him. She felt his body shiver with some emotion that seemed to strike at the very core of him. For some reason, she found herself whispering words of apology, of sorrow.
After a long moment, he stepped back tactfully, and his smile was sweet. “It is... well, it is a word I thought I knew. Forgive. I... I suppose I am a little overwhelmed.”
She nodded, but she thought she understood. Deep things sometimes welled up in her as well, and when they did, it didn't matter who was standing by.
“Thank you,” she said, looking down and suddenly shy. “You... you saved me.”
“I killed my foe,” he said, “but when I saw you, I could hardly do anything different.”
“When you saw me?” She laughed a little. “Why me?”
“Well, you have not come to The Hunt, and I was on the verge of tracking you down myself.”
Apple laughed at that. “I was going to,” she admitted. “But I guess with one thing or another, it got away from me. The Hunt looks awfully expensive for someone living in a studio apartment in the Third Ward.”
“It is not half as fine as you deserve,” he said, “and you would bless it with your presence.”
His words made her laugh out loud, and when he raised an eyebrow, she punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Bet you say that to all the girls you save from monsters,” she said. “Bet you say that to all the girls who eat your nice food.”
“Well, I suppose I am glad you think my food is nice,” he said, mock-injured. “That's something.”
She laughed, and there was a high shaky note to it that made her blink. “Oh, okay, look, I think I know what's going on.”
He cocked his head at her curiously, and she was altogether too aware that he was a handsome nearly naked man that she had in her apartment alone.
“Do you?”
“Yes. We just got out of a stressful situation, and we're both more than a little high on adrenaline.”
“Yes?”
“Well, that's probably impacting everything that we say and do right now. I mean, I stopped feeling scared, but everything I saw, with the monster, and you, and the fight and all, it really makes me feel... excited, right now, you know? Like I feel... I feel like I could run a marathon, or go fight a gorilla, or… or um...”
She trailed off, fairly certain that what she was going to say was far from proper, but given the fact that she couldn't stop staring at his body, it was probably pretty obvious. He laughed, and there was a smoky note to it that made her heart beat faster. She just barely stopped herself from whimpering.
“I know well of what you speak, Apple,” he said, and though he did not take a single step closer to her, she could feel his presence as clearly as if he had wrapped his arms around her and brought her close to his body.
“On my home planet Naith, warriors knew well of the euphoria that occurred after a battle, to know that one might have died but did not. There was grief, yes, for the companions that had fallen, but still there was the joy that you stayed standing, that you escaped death's call. You, and the people around you, you were never more alive than when you stood triumphant and alive. You might have ached, you might have been bloodied, but the need that surged through our bodies could not be denied.”
“What...” Apple swallowed hard and tried again. “What did you do?”
“We took each other,” he said simply. “Man to woman, woman to woman, man to man. It mattered not at all. We celebrated that we were alive, and the people closest to us, the ones who had shared our terror and our victory, they were the only ones we cared about.”
“It's a shame you don't have another warrior around,” she said, feeling a pang of jealousy.
He shook his head, looking almost angry with her as he stepped close again. “I saw you, Apple Muldoon,” he said, and there was a vibrant thrum in his chest that sounded like something between a growl and a purr. “I saw you face down the angel with nothing more than an improvised weapon. I saw you there. You would have fought it to the death whether I was there at all, and I know you. A warrior is not someone who is simply skilled in arms, Apple. He is not someone who has years of battles behind him or a general's cunning. He or she is merely a person who stands their ground, who refuses to let the enemy advance to take what is theirs.”
“Is that me?” she asked, her voice breathy. He was enormous, but she felt absolutely no fear, only a deep desire to suddenly run her mouth all over him, to know what his skin felt like under her hands, to take her ridiculous hoodie off of his body, possibly with her teeth.
“It is you,” he assured her, his voice soft and deep. “Will you let me? Say no if you wish and I will leave. But say yes...”
She didn't even need him to finish.
“Yes,” she said, throwing herself into his arms. “Yes, yes, yes...”
With a stifled groan, he picked her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing and carried her the few steps to the bed. She gasped when he dropped her gently onto the covers, and when he stripped off her hoodie and cast it aside, she couldn't help but stare.
“Oh... oh wow...”
He was completely unembarrassed, and he stood proudly, showing off his bare body to her. She knew that he was muscled, and she knew that he was scarred, but the cock that stood up proudly, straining toward her and already beaded with liquid at the tip made her body ache for him. It was wide and long, and she reached for it imperiously, wrapping her hand around the warm shaft and sliding her fingers along the length.
“I like a bold woman,” he said.
Encouraged, she tightened her hand around his member. Twice, she pumped it in her fist, and finally, she dipped her head to lap at the tip. It was as if she had unleashed some kind of beast in him. At the first touch of her tongue, he groaned, and then she found herself flat on her back, looking up at him. She knew that he was a large man, but something about lying down with him looming over her made him look even larger. He filled up the world, and her b
reath came faster, overwhelmed by his presence.
“You need me,” he whispered. “You want me.”
“Condoms are in the drawer,” she said, her voice soft and light. “Beyond that, oh god, whatever you want...”
He laughed, pleased at her willingness, and he dropped his head down to kiss her lingeringly on the mouth. One bare knee eased between her legs, nudging up against her crotch, and he smiled when she squirmed against him.
“I think you're wearing too many clothes, dear,” he whispered in her ear. “I think that I should take them off...”
She barely had time to nod before he was tearing at her clothes, ripping the light peasant top off of her body before opening her jeans and dragging them down her legs. She thought he would rip her panties off the same way, but instead, he palmed her through them, and she squirmed, knowing that he could feel how hot and wet she was through the fabric. He pressed his hand against her until she was bearing down on it, needing and wanting more, and only then did he remove the sodden scrap of cloth.
She took off her own bra, grinning with mischief when he saw her bare breasts for the first time.
“Put your mouth on them,” she whispered, and he wasted no time in obeying her.
He pressed his mouth to her nipples, sucking on one and then the other until they stood up proudly from her skin, and as he rested his body over hers, she could feel his aching erection press against her leg. Even as she moaned against his mouth, he pressed his fingers against her wet slit, finding her clit and flickering his fingertips ever so lightly against that vulnerable flesh.
Apple groaned and spread her legs wider. It had been so long since she had been touched in this way that she was wet and aching in no time at all, and finally, she had to push him away.
“Apple...?”
“Please,” she moaned, her voice throaty with desire. “Please, please have me...”
He grinned savagely at her need, and she whimpered at the hungry look in his eyes as he rolled the condom onto his cock. He knelt between her legs and, spreading her sex with his fingers, he pushed inside her with a long, slow plunge.
She had never felt stuffed so full, and when he started to move, she wrapped her legs around his waist and thrust up against him, wanting more and needing it more than she ever had.
Her climax caught her unawares, striking her hard with sensation and with electric shudders that ran up and down her body. She was afraid that she would fly apart, but instead he held her, gathering her close. She was in the final shudders of her climax when he shook, his whole body freezing before he poured inside her. For a long moment, he rested on top of her, propped up on his arms to take his weight off of her body, and then he rolled over to his side.
“Kashan... It was a good thing to hear you say.”
For a moment, Apple was confused, but there was a part of her, deep inside and one she thought long gone, that responded to it. She resisted the urge to run, to flee, to shout, and instead she shook it off.
“Do you want me to call you that again?” she asked, and she held her breath, waiting for his response.
“I...no,” he admitted, and as he held her close, she could feel the weight of things unsaid on both of them.
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK SIXTEEN: Glory in Victory - Volume 16
***
Glory in Victory
***
Chapter One
When Apple awoke, she was aware of a slight but delicious soreness between her legs, and the feeling of wellness and happiness radiated from deep inside her like a sun. When she sat up to see Bellaron with his back to her on the edge of the bed, she slithered against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder.
She blinked when she realized that he was holding the leather book of monster pictures that she had bought at the flea market, and then she realized that he was trembling, every muscle in his body as hard as granite with tension.
“Bellaron?”
“Where did you get this?” he asked softly. “Where could you possibly have gotten this?”
She explained how she had been drawn to the book in the flea market, growing more and more uncomfortable with the way that he held the book and the way he stared at her, eyes hard and hot. The gentle lover she had known the night before was gone now, and in his place was a person she wasn't sure she knew.
Apple reached for the book, and after a moment of hesitation, he allowed her to take it.
“It is something... sacred to my people,” he said, “and it has chosen you.”
“What is it?” she asked, bewildered. She couldn't deny, however, that when she got the book back, she held it against her heart as if it was something precious.
“It is called the Psalms of Istarte, a trickster goddess. Once, she gave my people the ability to switch forms, like you saw yesterday. However, over the years we lost the ability to switch from form to form as we pleased, and when I was born, the only form we had left was that of the animal you saw. Once we could take on many forms.”
She thought of the animals in the book, strange mythical animals that she had never imagined before.
“Are... are your forms in this book?” she asked, her voice small.
He nodded, a look of weariness coming over him. “Yes, but it is no matter now,” he said, rising abruptly. “The book... well, it was once possible for us to take on those forms. Now... well, times have changed.”
He reached for clothes that were neatly folded on the chair beside him, and Apple suddenly remembered that he had been naked when he came to her little apartment, his clothes a casualty of his transformation the day before.
“Where did you get those from?”
“I had one of the managers from my restaurant run it over. He's got a key to the spare clothes I keep at The Hunt.”
Apple bit her lip, a feeling of strange loss welling up in her. As he put on the clothes, he even began to speak differently, and soon, the man who stood in front of her was more high-class restaurateur in pressed slacks, pricey shirt and fine leather shoes than he was the man she had fought a monster with the day before. His eyes were cool green, and even as he leaned down to kiss her, she could feel walls between them.
“Keep the book or don't keep it, do what you want,” he said. “I just know that I want to see you again.”
He waited until she nodded, and with nothing more than that, he left. Apple looked around at her rumpled bed, the warm feelings in her heart turning cold and hurtful.
“Well, hell,” she whispered.
Chapter Two
Apple was glad that she had a meeting with Bryan Hillman that day, or she might have been tempted to spend the entire day moping and wondering what had gone so wrong. She set the book on her bedside table only to realize that she did not want to leave it behind. Instead, she compromised by tucking it into her knapsack so she could carry it around with her all day. She dressed neatly in her favorite thrift store dress, a sleeveless swishy number that was black with sprigs of flowers scattered all over it, and she thought that perhaps she was presentable enough to meet the heir to the Hillman fortune.
That was what she thought, at least, until she drove up to the Hillman mansion in the Lighthouse District, the oldest and most expensive area in the city. The Hillman mansion surpassed them all, and as a uniformed butler showed her in to the empty library, she had to stop herself from gaping.
She sat uncomfortably on the edge of one of the gorgeous chairs, feeling scruffy and more than a little as if she was just dirtying the place up with her presence, when she heard a soft knock on the doorway behind her.
Apple turned to see a small woman with a perfect heart-shaped face approaching her. The woman smiled shyly, making Apple think of delicate woodland animals and the wispy beauty of a forest fairy. Usually, women with this type of beauty made Apple feel as if she were as big and clumsy as a plow horse, but when this woman took a seat next to her, she felt immediately comfortable.
“I'm sorry, B
ryan is delayed. I was just finishing up a meeting with him, and some stock investors got a hold of him on his phone. He looked like he was going to be tied up for a bit, so I thought I'd excuse myself and come to find you.”
“I think you have one over on me,” Apple admitted. “It sounds like you know who I am, but I don't know who you are.”
The woman laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, and she shook her head. “Sorry, I spend most of my time in a lab, I guess I'm used to everything coming with labels, huh? I'm Rachel, Dr. Rachel Deering...”
“You... you're married to Lynxar!” Apple blurted out. She was immediately embarrassed by her outburst, but in all fairness, when the pair had married, the papers had been so full of pictures that she was surprised she hadn't recognized Rachel's face.
“Well, I also design medical technology and participate in scientific community panels, but yeah, I guess that's where you would know me from,” Rachel said with a self-conscious little laugh.
“Oh... oh, I'm sorry, I knew you did that other stuff too, I just... you know, the magazines and everything...”
Rachel waved away her embarrassment with a knowing nod. “It gets old sometimes,” she said confidingly. “I love my husband, but... well, he's a big man. He takes up space, he takes up... awareness I guess, and sometimes, it's a little easy to get overwhelmed.”
Apple nodded, but she was startled when Rachel suddenly seized her hand.
“I know it’s not my place to say,” she said, “but you know, if you run into the same thing with Bellaron, with everything he's got in his head and in his heart, you know, I want you to know you can come to me, okay?”
Apple stared at the other woman, and she couldn't even begin to talk about what she thought was the most odd thing about that particular exchange. “Um, me and Bellaron... you know about that?”
Rachel nodded. “Bryan told me. It was so cute, he was asking about you after the opening.”
Lynxar Series: Boxed Set (Books 14-19) (Superhero Romance - Werewolf Romance) Page 5
