“Well, that’s for sure,” she muttered before she could stop herself.
Ted looked at her askance, but he didn’t make anything out of her statement, she was grateful to notice. Instead he nodded towards the pile of parkas in one corner of the tent meaningfully and Betty nodded back. The two of them wordlessly each selected one that would best fit them, and then grabbed gloves and other gear as well.
“Do you think the storm has passed yet?” Ted asked as they began to move toward the exit of the warmer cave and head into the larger cavern they’d been following before.
“I don’t think so,” said Betty. “This cavern is even colder than before. It’s probably still raging full force.”
“If we find that it is, we could always wait a little bit longer before I go,” said Ted as he leaned in near her ear. “I’m sure we could find some way to keep ourselves entertained.”
“No doubt,” she chuckled. Then she slipped and began to slide to the side, right toward an opening on the far side. “Ted!”
Throwing himself flat, Ted grabbed her hand, hoping his body weight would be enough to keep them from both going down. They drew very close to the dark, forbidding edge of the shelf, but then Ted managed to pull her back toward him with an insistent tug. He gathered her into his arms and held on, and the only sound either of them heard for a time was the rapid beating of their hearts.
“Too close,” Ted finally said. “We need to be more careful.”
Betty’s teeth were chattering as she nodded her head in agreement.
“Come on, let’s go back to the camp for now,” Ted decided. “You’re in no shape right now to guide anybody anywhere.”
Betty nodded her agreement, and Ted helped her back the way they had come They went into the tent and he laid her down, then curled up beside her and dug in, tucking them into a nice, warm nest. His heat and nearness eventually took the edge off of Betty’s fear, and they drifted off to sleep a second time.
*****
Betty woke up a few hours later to warm hands stuffed inside of her shirt beneath her heavy parka. Ted had located her nipples and he was playing with them in a most pleasant manner. Her hood was thrown back so his lips could find the pulse of her throat, and as he realized she’d come fully awake, he cast her a wicked grin and gave her a playful bite.
“Ah, so my vampire still hasn’t decided to bite?” she chuckled.
“If I bite, then the suspense would be over,” he told her.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Betty agreed. She rolled towards him and he leaned forward, stealing a kiss from her lips. But when he tried to back away again, Betty held him fast to her, kissing him back hungrily.
“Don’t tell me she wants her dessert right now,” Ted teased, but the purr in his voice was obvious as he said it.
“It’s your own fault,” Betty said. “You’re the one who let her get a taste of the good stuff.”
“No, no, sweetheart, blame him,” said Ted, looking downward. “Everything is all about him, and he can be very demanding at times. You have no idea.”
“Oh, I see,” she smirked. Then she pushed the top of Ted’s parka downwards, off his shoulders. He laughed and took it off, and she took hers off at the same time. It didn’t take long for the rest of their clothes to come off either, each one helping the other to be rid of them. It would probably have been an easier task if they weren’t determined to get in as many kisses as possible at the same time.
“You know something, Betty,” Ted panted as he tossed her on top of the parkas, which he hadn’t moved off of the bedding. “There’s at least a week’s worth of food around here. We don’t really have to go anywhere for quite some time.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she smirked.
Ted’s lips and teeth came down to nip at her throat, making her moan softly. His hand slid up to claim her breast as he moved down to claim the nipple in his mouth. Betty’s fingers sifted through his hair as he played with the hardened nub with the tip of his tongue, then swirled it around and suckled.
“Oh! That feels good!” she told him.
He released the first nipple with a pop, then moved over to taste the other one. Betty’s fingers latched on when he gave that one a little bite before he let it go as well. Then her eyes widened when he moved lower instead of coming back up for more kisses. Her breath hitched in her throat as that magic mouth of his nuzzled into her slit, taking her throbbing clit into his mouth just as he’d done her nipples, working at it until she was writhing with need.
Betty found herself grabbing onto the parkas for lack of a better idea where to place her hands. She clamped her jaws shut in an attempt not to call out as her whole body lit up, finding a heated release.
“Now you’re good and ready for your feeding,” said Ted with a satisfied grin.
“Y-yes!” she agreed, panting as she closed her eyes and tossed back her head.
Ted wasted no time on formality as he plunged into her, his cock more than ready to feel her warmth. The two of them moved together slowly at first, but it didn’t take long before they were moving hot and heavy against each other instead. Now their moans filled the cavern, echoing off the icy walls. Betty wouldn’t be too surprised if their noises made it all the way back to Allie, but right that minute she didn’t even care.
After they came, the two tumbled backwards onto the sleeping bag again, too exhausted to bother with blankets or move into a more proper position. They didn’t sleep this time, just held each other and cuddled.
“So, do you think Allie has sent out a search party yet?” Ted teased her a while later.
“No, not yet,” Betty said tiredly. “I told her I wouldn’t be heading back for a day.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” he agreed as he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him so that her head rested on top of his chest. “Tell me more about you, Betty. I want to know everything.”
Betty smirked. “What do you want to know? I run a restaurant by day and I research by night, pretty much get about four hours of sleep if I’m lucky, and then start all over again.”
“Do you research lots of different things?” he asked curiously.
“Yeah, maybe,” she shrugged. “We have about a hundred artifacts that we’re studying. Allie and I suspect there’s a hidden culture here in Alaska that’s been around for over two thousand years, and we’ve found a few items that could potentially back up that claim.”
“A hidden culture?” he scoffed, though she felt him tense slightly.
Ted was busy trying to find out things about her concerning the Raven, so maybe she could discover a bit more about him while she was at it. After all, wasn’t turnabout fair play? If she told him straight out, maybe she could get him to say something useful.
So she said, “Yeah, we think a group of Romans came here with some slave women and settled somewhere in the northern region. Over that amount of time, though, I’m sure some of them would have to take wives from among the tribes. But Allie is certain some of the descendants would have remained white, probably at least thirty percent of them. Knowing that, it seems like the bulk of them must have remained hidden until at least the 1900’s when enough white people were around that they could blend in.”
“Allie sounds like a pretty smart person,” Ted replied. “And you also believe this to be true?”
“I do,” she said with a nod. Ted got a speculative look on his face, nodded slightly, and closed his eyes, as if he intended to sleep. Betty gratefully decided to do the same.
Chapter 5
When Betty cracked her eyes open later on, she found Ted sitting forward with his face in his hands, fingers rubbing at his temples. She didn’t move as she continued to watch him for a while, and eventually he sighed, rubbed at his eyes, and said, “What the hell am I going to do?”
She tensed slightly as he moved, surging to his feet with a resolute look on his face. On his wrist was a watch, and he pushed a button on the thing, making it beep once. Afterwards it
had a tiny red dot in one corner of the face. Betty suspected he’d just activated some sort of a homing beacon, and she decided to ‘wake up’ at that point.
“Shouldn’t we get going, then?” she asked softly. “More carefully this time?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ted agreed. She could hear a sense of uneasiness in his tone, like he’d just eaten a rotten tomato or something, and she clearly understood that pushing that button had been a difficult decision for him. Still, he had pushed it, hadn’t he? Which meant she needed to tread more carefully with him than she did with the ice.
“All right,” she agreed, sitting up.
“Why don’t we grab a bite to eat first though?” he said then. “It’s not like we have to hurry or anything, right?”
“Sure, I guess,” she reluctantly agreed.
She suspected he just wanted to remain stationary for a while, but if she insisted on leaving now he might figure out that she was wise to him. They ate in silence, and then helped each other into their clothes and parkas.
Ted leaned in and gave Betty a kiss once she was dressed, and it almost felt like a good-bye. They stepped into the main cavern, where the scent of many lions at a distance filled the air, but Betty was still pretending to be human, and she was nowhere close to a place where she could lose Ted or his friends if she transformed now. It wasn’t time to run just yet.
“This way,” she told Ted, leading him further into the cave rather than out of it. She had a plan to get away which involved a rather tall ice cliff. The only issue would be whether or not it was so tall that the lions couldn’t jump onto it as well. Especially Ted. She had a feeling he wasn’t going to just let her go so easily.
It would probably take half an hour to lead Ted and the lions down to where she wanted them to be. The trouble was, she and Ted were traveling as humans while the lions would be in their shifted forms, making it easy for them to move more quickly. She wasn’t sure if they would overtake them before she managed to get to the cliff. But it was a risk she would have to take.
As they walked along, Ted took Betty’s hand in his and gave it a little squeeze, and she felt a bubble of resentment well up inside of her. She couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t just let his lions take her yesterday, before they had come down into the caves. Then, they would have never made love, and she wouldn’t be feeling so wretched now about leading him astray.
But if he had tried to take her then, with only four lions and himself, she could have easily gotten away. And maybe he hadn’t been willing to give up the night they’d just shared. In all reality, she wouldn’t have wanted to give it up either.
This whole thing felt like some sort of Romeo and Juliet tragedy sort of thing. Two lovers destined to be apart because of the will of their parents. Well, or the persons who had raised them in any case. But why split hairs in the middle of her melancholy?
“Betty, why are we heading down a slope?” Ted wanted to know.
“Oh, we have to go into the cave a little further in order to go out of it again,” she explained. “Don’t worry, it won’t be long now.”
“All right then,” he shrugged. They came down by the cliff and stopped, unable to go any further. “So, it’s a dead end then? Why would you want to trap yourself here? This only makes it easier.”
Casting him a slight glare, Betty squared her shoulders. “Perhaps you’re right, perhaps not. However, all pretenses aside, I thought you might like to know something about the Raven and the powers it grants. It might interest you. You see, Ted, when you follow a particular leader, you take on the form that they believe to be the most powerful, and apparently it goes by the gender of that leader as well. But do you know what I found out? If you are loyal only to yourself, you can take on whatever form you like. So I’m afraid you’re just going to have to find your own way out of the caves from here. But I really did enjoy the break. Thank you for that.”
Suddenly, the lions appeared at the top of the slope. Betty transformed into a large white raven and fluttered away, heading for the top of the cliff. Ted stood down at the bottom of the gully, laughing delightedly.
“Finally, Betty Cummings!” he called up after her. “That’s the spirit I’ve longed to see again. Only, you have made one fatal calculation. I have been following my own set of rules for a very long time!”
Ted also became a bird and flew up after her. Betty had already landed and transformed back into her human form again. She realized he was following her, and her face fell in panic. She turned and began to run, slipping on the ice and sliding down to the bottom on the other side of the rise. Raven-Ted caught up to her, transforming into his human form again even as he flew, so that the slight fall added impetus as he landed on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
“Oh!” Betty growled. “Let me go!”
“What if I don’t want to?” Ted smirked. “What if I am finally ready to bite you now?”
“Don’t you dare, you jerk!” she yelled at him angrily.
“Sweetheart, if you really wanted to be away from me, you wouldn’t have become human just now, would you?” he pointed out. “That must mean that you wanted another taste. Well, I’m more than willing to give you one.”
“Bastard!” she spat, and her hand moved to hit him. Ted caught her wrist easily, holding her hand beside his face and looking at it dubiously.
“That’s all you’ve got?” he asked. “Betty, Betty, Betty, you’re not even trying. But that’s okay. I knew you wouldn’t.”
Ted leaned forward and kissed her hungrily, and Betty hated herself for kissing him right back. The heavy parkas bunched up between them as he pressed his sex against hers, pressing into her again and again through the thick pants. It was a lesson in futility, but neither one of them wanted to learn it. They just kept kissing and rubbing, doing their best to enjoy what they could.
The four lions who had come to the restaurant the night before stepped up to interrupt their little scene. Seeing them, Betty transformed right underneath Ted’s body and threw him aside, flipping around and beginning to sprint on all fours in her polar bear form. Ted hit his face on a rock and bit his lip when he fell. He sat up and wiped the blood away. His lions were already giving chase, but he just sat there and watched. He already knew she would get away.
*****
Allie didn’t seem overly surprised when Betty came in through the trap door about an hour later. The two women exchanged a glance, and then Allie pursed her lips.
“Don’t ask,” Betty said with a shrug, tears welling up in her eyes.
“That good, huh?” Allie smirked.
“Yeah,” Betty said, her voice cracking. “Better than good.”
“Did you know who he was?” she asked softly.
“Of course I knew,” Betty sniffled. “I’m not a complete idiot. I just didn’t care.”
“I’d love to get a look at this guy,” Allie commented dryly. “First you got him to call off his lions in the middle of a raid, and then you even managed whatever escapades you two have apparently got up to in the caves. I’m amazed you’re still here—and in one piece.”
“I don’t know,” Betty smirked. “One part of me feels very much like he tore it in two.”
“Wow, he must be really good,” Allie chuckled.
Betty’s jaw dropped. “I was talking about my heart.”
“No you weren’t,” Allie pointed out. “Not walking like that, you aren’t.”
“Um—it’s that obvious?”
“Betty, either you fell on your ass pretty darn hard, or he tore it up,” Allie commented. “I must say, it’s about time you took an interest in a man, but did he have to be a lion? I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell anybody about this, do you?”
Betty sighed. “Probably not, but—”
“But what?” Allie asked sternly. “You aren’t hoping to see this guy again, are you?”
The tears were back again. “I—I really was talking about
my heart, Allie. I feel like I’ve just been run over by an airplane or something. What am I supposed to do now?”
“You do the same as you have always done, child,” Allie said then. “You protect the Clan and defend the Raven. Just because some little lion made you purr doesn’t change the fact that people are depending on you. And if he shows up here again, I expect you to fight just as hard as you ever have to win the day.”
“Don’t worry about that, Allie, I know where my duties lie,” said Betty softly. “He won’t get anything out of me about that artifact, guaranteed.”
“Do you think it’s still safe for you to return to the restaurant again?” Allie scoffed.
“If these kitties want to play rough, I’m sure I can oblige,” Betty scoffed. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow, same as always. Guaranteed.”
“Maybe I should send Crystal with you,” Allie said speculatively.
“Crystal? She isn’t even trained yet,” Betty said. “Why would you send her?”
“Her father is a lion,” Allie shrugged. “Maybe they won’t hurt her because of it.”
“You mean Crystal’s mother and some lion—are you serious?” Betty gasped. “How many other kids around here came from lions?”
“Sweetheart, do you see any other worthwhile men around here?” Allie scoffed. “Being transformed sort of changes your tastes, I think. Most of these women don’t prefer humans, who are so much weaker than themselves. It’s difficult to want a mate who is likely to be killed.”
“Yes, I was feeling exactly the same way,” Betty admitted. “And then I saw Ted, and—”
Allie’s eyes rounded. “Then it is Ted? As in Theodore Antonius? You’re right about one thing, he is definitely the king’s son.”
“Do you know him?” asked Betty with surprise.
“Yes, I met him when he was nine,” Allie admitted. “That’s the year your mother died. The lions had raided our facility in Wainwright. You were about seven at the time, and back then we didn’t keep the children at the main camp, so you probably don’t remember much of this, but both your mother and I were captured and brought before their king.”
Unbreak My Heart: BWWM Romance (Brother From Money Book 20) Page 17
