by Petra Landon
“Hawk” Raoul called, stopping Hawk in his tracks.
“Alph?”
“Duncan has something to say to you” the Alpha said, throwing the ball into the English Shifter’s court with a pointed glance.
Duncan arched an eyebrow at the Alpha, a gesture that had Elisabetta frowning, before he turned smoothly to engage Hawk. Elisabetta leaned back in her chair, a pucker between her brows, reflecting on the subtle cues she had just observed.
In the small room downstairs, Tasia engaged Luis Beltran, with a determination born of the desire to have her friend not feel like an interloper in her own Pack. The Alpha was right — both Hawk and Sara were tied to this Pack. Sara would never be free, until she made a place for herself here.
“Sara doesn’t know that I’m talking to you” she opened.
Luis did a subtle double take, but he said nothing, waiting patiently for her to continue, a watchful look in his eyes.
After much thought, Tasia had come to the decision that being candid with Luis was her best option. Beating around the bush would get them nowhere.
“She thinks you’re like the Shifters that came after me because of my admission at the Lair party that I would never get involved with a Shifter.”
For a moment, the normally impassive Were-Alpha looked thunderstruck, an arrested expression on his face.
“Why would she think that?” He stared at her blankly.
Tasia shrugged. “There have been subtle signs. Your Shifters, the ones that work with her, are suddenly on their best behavior. You joined Duncan and Hawk to confront Justin Markham at the party.”
Tasia paused. “Sara’s past experience tells her to not trust her Pack” she said softly.
Luis closed his eyes with a soft sigh to lean back against his chair. Tasia searched his expression, but it betrayed no hint of his thoughts. When his eyes opened again, Luis was back to his usual taciturn and unflappable self.
“Your friend has nothing to worry about. Not from me. I’ll make sure she knows that” he said courteously, his manner curiously formal.
“I appreciate you coming to me with this, Tasia” he added.
Tasia inclined her head, relieved at having gotten her message across so easily, and confident Luis would set Sara’s mind at ease. Hopefully, things would get a little easier for Sara.
As she stood up, assuming their meeting over, Luis detained her. “A word of warning, Tasia.”
There was a note in his voice that gave Tasia pause.
“If Stefan Simeonov ever skirts the line with you, go to the Alpha.”
He paused, struck by an image of the implacable and aloof Alpha. Luis found the Alpha a straight-shooter to deal with, but he knew that Tasia might have a different perspective on the formidable Shifter.
“Or Duncan” Luis amended to a Tasia staring at him with a mix of confusion, puzzlement and astonishment.
“Don’t wait for him to cross the line” Luis reiterated, his eyes holding hers.
There was a look in the depths of the Shifter’s eyes that had Tasia make a mental note to watch out for the blue-eyed Were-Alpha. Though curious about Luis’ cryptic warning, Tasia didn’t press him. Luis was obviously doing her a good turn in return for what she had disclosed to him.
“I will” she answered. “Thank you.”
That night, Tasia finally ran out of time. Invited to stroll the Embarcadero by the man himself, she braced herself for an uncomfortable session ahead. Since the Alpha’s surprise pronouncement the day before, Tasia found herself conflicted. Elated by the prospect of one day using her powers openly, under the aegis of the Pack, while at the same time, wondering if the very mantle of Pack was slated to remain over her for much longer. She could sense that matters between the Alpha and her were coming to a head. Her secrets, the unexpected flare of an unwanted attraction, even the latest bombshells from the investigation — everything seemed to conspire to destroy the hard-fought and uneasy truce between them.
On the sidewalk, Tasia cast a sidelong glance at her companion. He had said little so far, seemingly immersed in thought on the drive over. Tonight though, Embarcadero was unusually crowded, groups of revelers streaming out from the surrounding streets on their way back to their homes, after an evening in the city. It was the start of the weekend, and it was early, going on nine, unlike their usual midnight walks by the bay. Tasia had been surprised by the early hour of the invitation. The Alpha’s punishing schedule was no secret — he tended to keep late hours.
The light across the walkway turned green and the crowd around them surged forward to cross the street. Jostled, Tasia lost her footing. Quick as a flash, he steadied her as the sea of humanity hurried to cross the intersection before the light turned red.
“Let’s get away from the crowd” he said.
Tasia followed him, away from the hordes by the clogged roads and behind the buildings, to the pathway by the water. It was less crowded here, despite the early hour. She made for the seawall to lean against it, adjusting the hood of her jacket. He settled by her, one arm on the wrought iron railing that topped the wall. Tasia cast another fleeting glance at him, while she fiddled with her jacket. This section of the walkway was less lit, away from the brighter paths by the road. His face lay mostly in shadows.
Unaccountably nervous, she rushed into speech.
“You haven’t asked me about what I said in the woods” she blurted out.
In the semi-darkness, Tasia couldn’t discern his expression, but she rather thought she had surprised him.
“I gave you my word I wouldn’t press you about your secrets.”
Tasia said nothing.
“I wouldn’t have pressed you before either, if circumstances had been different. But given my suspicions, I didn’t want you waltzing into woods teeming with leeches.”
“You were suspicious?” she exclaimed. If so, he’d certainly hidden it well. After the early days, he had never pushed her for an explanation about the dead Vampire at the San Francisco nest.
“Not that your blood is poisonous to leeches, no. How could I suspect something so fantastic?”
Tasia sighed, glancing away to fiddle with her jacket again.
“One dead leech, in your vicinity, I can pass off as a fluke” he pointed out. “Two cannot be a coincidence, witchling.”
Tasia took the bull by the horns. She hated this sense of her head being inexorably led to the chopping block.
“Am I here to have my head chewed off about not trusting you again?” she asked him.
At the forefront of her mind was the volcanic eruption that had followed his discovery of Gabriel Azevedo’s relationship with her.
“No” he said calmly. “I’m here to have a different conversation with you.”
Somewhat puzzled by the cryptic statement, Tasia countered. “You were furious when I told you about it.”
“I was” he admitted. “Since then, I’ve had time to think about it. It would be unfair to blame you. After all, you couldn’t have anticipated that I’d drag you along to rescue Roman, or a standoff against the leeches. Or, that in the morning, Nandini would flee her mother’s guards.”
Tasia’s jaw almost dropped open, at the matter-of-fact way he seemed to shrug this off.
“Why are you being so reasonable about this?” she inquired suspiciously.
He shrugged in the darkness, enigmatic as usual. “With your secrets, you’re like Pandora’s Box. Every time I wedge the box open a little, I wish I could close it again.”
He stared down at Tasia in the darkness while she tried to make sense of what he had just admitted.
“You and I will face the same fork in the road, again and again, by virtue of who you are. If we’re to progress from the same dance we seem to engage in, every time I discover something new about you, then one of us must play the adult in the room. I guess the role falls to me.” The last was said somewhat provocatively.
Tasia, busy digesting his words, turned incredulous eyes on him wra
thfully. A sudden gust of wind had her loosely hooked hood fall back to leave her head bare, but Tasia ignored it to glare at the man by her side.
The gold eyes glinted, a brightness that even the near darkness could not hide from Tasia.
“That was a joke, witchling.”
His words had her wrath draining away. She peered at his face, squinting in the dark to study his expression.
He leaned down, to bring his face closer. “Checking me out? You have only to ask.”
His other hand moved lazily to the wall beside her, enclosing her in the circle of his arms.
Finding him too close for comfort, a skittish Tasia glanced away, trying to gather her thoughts together.
“I can’t believe I didn’t note it before” he murmured with an air of academic interest.
Tasia couldn’t resist. “What?”
“You’re so easy to rile, witchling.” There was a caressing note in his voice that put her on her guard. “Or, is it I who brings that out in you, hmm?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Tasia fought gamely.
“No?” The husky question had her turning away from him.
But there was nowhere to go. His arms caged her in loosely on both sides. She, who had been chilly only moments ago, could feel the heat radiating from the big body. He wasn’t even touching her, merely standing within touching distance. Tasia had the wild urge to ask him to let her go, to free her from this silken web he seemed to be weaving around her, with his presence, the husky-voiced questions and the glitter in the gold eyes that shone through the darkness. But she resisted the urge, determined to stand her ground.
Another gust of air blew her hair into her face.
“Allow me.” He reached for her, smoothing the hair away from her face before she could do it herself.
Tasia held herself still. Like before, when Bianchi had confronted them here, he gathered up her hair carefully to delicately tuck it behind her ear. Heart beating a little too fast for comfort, Tasia glanced up, but the gold eyes were focused on the task of meticulously swiping away each stray strand.
“You trust me” he announced abruptly.
The gold eyes flashed to her, pinning her in place.
“Don’t you?” His fingers stroked down her face, the touch whisper-soft.
Tasia had the impression that it was an absent-minded caress, like he wasn’t fully aware of what he did.
She nodded affirmatively.
“And, I trust you” he said quietly, the gold eyes holding her captive. “Is that not enough to stop this dance of ours?”
Tasia’s mouth opened to ask what dance he talked about, and the stroking thumb skirted the edge of her lips. Her breath hitched at the butterfly touch. The tiny sound had the gold eyes snapping to her parted lips.
For a moment, neither moved as the air seemed to simmer between them.
The calloused pad of his thumb rubbed delicately against the skin at the edge of her lips. “You told Elisabetta once that you’ve no issues with Shifters being Shifters” the throaty voice rumbled over her.
Her head swimming, Tasia reached behind her to grasp the railing for support. It prevented her from collapsing into a puddle at his feet.
“Uh huh.”
“Did you mean it?” His eyes remained on her parted lips, singularly focused to the exclusion of everything else.
“Ye … ess” Tasia stuttered, resisting the urge to lick her suddenly dry lips.
Smoldering gold eyes slid unhurriedly up to tangle with her. “Do you know what I’d do if I believed you?”
Ensnared by the glittering eyes, Tasia shook her head mutely.
“Follow the time-honored way of my ancestors …. fight off the others and carry you back to my Lair.” The husky tones seemed to whisper into the night, tantalizing in their sensual promise, even as the note of possessiveness in it had Tasia’s inner voice renew the struggle to break through to her.
Tasia fought off a shiver as everything but him seemed to fade into the background.
I already live at your Lair.
“So you do.” There was the ghost of a smile in his voice. “Shame, I was looking forward to that part.”
Unable to form a coherent response, Tasia’s mind nevertheless was in overdrive, thoughts and questions jostling each other in a confused jumble of musings and emotions.
Huh … yet, he keeps telling us he’s not a traditionalist.
He chuckled softly, a sound that seemed to rumble from deep in his chest.
“I don’t know what it is about you, Big Eyes, but you call to the Wyr in me. Always have.”
What does that mean?
“You bring back memories of a different man — the part of me that’s a throwback.” The words flowed like warm honey over her, unhurried and taking the time to savor each hitch of breath. “Like a Siren’s lure that awakens my every instinct, compelling me to ignore the past and everything I want to forget.” The confession seemed to be torn from him.
No, no, don’t call me a Siren.
His thumb skirted her lips again and Tasia’s teeth grazed the pad.
He groaned in response, the gold eyes flaring. Amidst the premonition of danger, Tasia heard a low hum in the background, like gushing water or a bubbling brook. She had no time to ponder it as his palm slid from her cheek to her nape, the fingers tangling in her hair.
“I’m torn” he admitted with another soft groan, the words seemingly wrenched from him. “A part of me wants to lock you away in the Lair, where nothing can touch you, while the other wants to see you fly without always looking over your shoulder, wondering when your luck will run out.”
Tasia tried to ignore the hum of noise in her head and the admonishment filling her mind, to process what he was telling her. Everything in her screamed that this was important.
“You were meant to fly free, witchling, and one day, I’ll make sure you have the choice to do so.” The husky words came out like a pledge, shocking Tasia, who knew what an enormous commitment such a task would be. “Until then, you’ll have to make do with the gilded cage of my Lair.”
I’ll always have to remain in the shadows, in one way or another … I can never fly free.
“You will” he reiterated firmly, his calm confidence making it seem like a pedestrian promise. “Much as my beotan would prefer to lock you away from every other man” he added wryly.
What other man?
“Young Hawk, for one” he murmured this time, allowing the wind to carry away his words.
Tasia stirred. What?
“Don’t worry about my beotan” he assured her huskily. “I have him under control. He’s the throwback.”
He bent forward, his lips grazing the soft skin under her ear. It struck Tasia how different this was from the cage — he seemed to savor her, more in control and less frenzied. Before, there had been an almost desperate quality to his kisses. Like before though, scorching heat spread through her, blossoming where his lips caressed her skin to spread out in waves. Despite the chill in the blustery wind wafting over the bay, she felt warm. The hand on the wall moved in to enclose her. Tasia let go of her desperate grip on the railing behind her, allowing herself to be swept into him. His lips slid down her skin, the hand in her hair angling her head, to leave a searing trail of fire on her. Her eyes closed, her head slumping back to bare her throat to him. The hand around her waist tucked her into him, fitting her into the curve of the hard, muscled body. With anyone else, her vulnerable position with her arms trapped behind her and her throat bared to him, would alarm Tasia. Yet, it generated no panic in her.
“We don’t agree on much” he murmured against her heated skin.
A pounding thrum seemed to now join the hum of noise filling her head. To her surprise, Tasia realized that she could sense the quickened beat of his heart.
Despite the din in her, Tasia tried to pick up the thread of the conversation.
“Your … beast?” The words trembled on her lips.
“H
mm.” She felt the rumble of his affirmation vibrate through her, entwined as she was to him.
“But we both want you” he said thickly, his mouth hot against the delicate shadows under her collar bone.
And just like that, the strange drumming in her ears, playing in the background like so much white noise, came roaring back to thunder in her head, as did the warnings from her inner voice that were now screams in their demand for attention. Tempted and beguiled by him, Tasia had rejected the warnings, shoving them away unheeded. But now, she could ignore them no longer. Her subconscious seemed to regurgitate every cautionary admonishment from her father, playing them in a never-ending loop. She could not do this. Not with him. Therein lay madness and destruction. This powerful, influential, and strong-willed Chosen was the epitome of the man she could never have.
“No” she said feebly, struggling against the arm that held her to him. The word came out as a squeak but it was enough to stop him in his tracks.
The roving lips went still against her skin, his arm loosening around her. Tasia brought her hands up to his shoulder to shove at him, hardening her heart to all temptation.
“No” she said, her voice stronger this time, fear and resolve lending her wings. “Can’t do this.”
For truth be told, despite everything she had told herself, this was the conversation she most feared with him. Not because of what he might ask of her, but because Tasia feared that resisting him would be the most difficult trial she’d attempt in her life. To her consternation and disbelief, Tasia realized that despite the tempestuous history and their past difficulties, she was very tempted to give in to him, to succumb to the mindless passion he seemed to kindle in her with a word, a touch or a look. To obey the creed drummed into her, she had to fight with everything, her very instincts, every fiber of her being and her heart to push him away.
He wrenched himself away, to straighten. The hand holding her by the waist released her to put distance between their heated bodies, but the hand in her hair remained loosely fisted in the dark strands.
