“Alpha,” she whimpered.
The voice in her head became the boom of a cannon—exploding through her awareness again and again, until she spoke again.
“Alpha of Alphas. Adam.”
The voice was silent and the war continued to rage outside.
She knew she had to tell him it was okay to change. He kept his human form because he knew she was afraid.
And she was. Marijka was terrified, but he’d be more effective in his primal form. She remembered Zoranna’s words.
Still another pack emerged from the trees. This wasn’t just a setup, it was an annihilation. This pack didn’t even try to take him down. Instead, they began throwing themselves at a car. Marijka sprinted through the compartments. She had to know what was inside they wanted so badly.
She slammed through to the luggage car. The Aeternali hadn’t even bothered to conceal their precious cargo. The only thing in the space was seven barrels of the virus. Marijka recognized the bright blue fibers squirming through the blue gel clinging to the lids as the same she’d seen in Evan’s wounds—like little silkworms knitting the flesh back together.
Bright light flashed into her eyes as the top of the car was ripped open and the beasts dropped down inside with her.
Brutal cunning flashed on their horrible faces and they ignored the barrels. They only wanted her.
It had been a distraction to get her farther away from Luka—and to infect her.
Marijka now knew exactly what Evan felt before he died—what he’d seen.
Zoranna said she’d have to face her darkest fear, and here she was, trapped in a tin can with a bunch of rabid werewolves.
If she had to go out, it wouldn’t be like this.
She sprayed the canister of CS gas she had in her utility belt, the silver nitrate filling the air. The silver particles filled their lungs, and she hoped the nitrate would start to burn from the inside out. Her eyes watered, but she’d been hit in the face with the stuff so many times, it was more of an irritation than anything.
Marijka was fast with her gun, but not as fast as Luka.
A massive beast dropped between her and the attacking pack. Howls echoed in a devilish song all around them. The rest of the creatures gathered at the top of the hole to watch.
Lid after lid was flung off the barrels and they were overturned on the floor. Marijka crept back to the farthest corner to avoid touching it.
But it gathered around Luka’s feet.
Or what she assumed was Luka. She’d already noticed his massive size, so much bigger than the rest of them. His pelt was a wheat gold, shiny and silky. Healthy. No sign of sickness. She could see the man in the beast. The outline of his jaw was the same when it was elongated into a muzzle. Even the noble incline of his head was the same.
He was still Luka.
His roar was fearsome, shaking the whole car with his fury. Some of the beasts yelped, but they didn’t back down.
Instead, they launched themselves at him like rockets.
Marijka fired shots at those who watched from above. She knew better than to shoot inside the compartment. The growls and yelps as her bullets tore through flesh pleased her. Until she sensed that it hurt Luka as well.
There was no outer reaction to betray his pain, but part of her just knew.
They snarled and bit, gnashed their teeth, tore into him—but still he fought on, fierce and proud until he’d destroyed them all.
He sprang up through the hole in the roof, careful only to grab her where she was armored, and left her on top of the train car as he pounced on the beasts that had stood in wait for the outcome.
They offered no resistance now as he tore them apart.
He must have killed their Alpha.
The sound of chopper blades split the air and men in gear like Luka’s rappelled out from the birds, quickly securing Luka’s train car and lifting the civilians off to safety.
She’d done it. She’d faced her worst fear and they’d come through it.
Only, she didn’t feel the sense of elation that was supposed to come with that kind of accomplishment. Probably because her Gypsy blood knew there was more to it. There always was.
Thirteen men and women stripped off their gear and donned robes as they surrounded Marijka and Luka. Spotlights glared brightly and focused on Luka as soon as he killed the last beast. The group began to chant and the light from the spotlights coalesced into a swirling ball that crackled with light.
They were necromancers and she recognized the chant. It was the same one they’d used at her last day of academy when they’d sent her into the Abyss.
“Officer Zolinski, exit the circle.” It was the same voice from the phone call.
“I will not.” She climbed down from her perch and approached Luka. If they were sending him to the Abyss, he wasn’t going alone. And by all the powers listening, they’d come through the other side and bring a reckoning with them the likes of which no one had ever seen. She vowed this as a woman, and by her Gypsy magic.
“Krasavitsa,” he said, stepping back from her. “No. You must go.”
“What do you mean, I must go?” she cried. “That’s a pile of garbage and you know it. We came through this. I don’t care what you are. That doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere without you.” Marijka stared at his face, and he seemed unwilling to meet her eyes. “Luka?”
His eyes finally lifted to hers and the absolute hopeless acceptance she saw there made her realize he was covered in the virus. Infected. Wounds scarred blue as they healed and the squirming fibers moved under his skin, writhing and squirming deeper inside of him.
“Oh, my goddess, no.” She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to hold back the flood of grief that threatened to spill out of her.
After everything that had happened, she refused to accept that this was the end for him. For them. There had to be something that could be done.
“Who has the cure? Which one of you bastards made this virus?” She drew her gun, ready to do anything it took to cure him.
“Marijka—” the sound of her name on his lips made her pause “—they’re only trying to help us. This is what I want.” Luka’s voice was like crushed glass as his wolf form threatened to overtake him.
“I thought you wanted me,” she whispered.
“Remember—” he growled and threw his head back, his body spasming between beast and man. All of his muscles tensed and locked as he fought the change and the infection. He roared again as he regained control. “Remember when you said that you couldn’t live with yourself? I can’t die, malenkaya. But I could live to infect the world. I don’t want to be the cause of that.”
“You won’t be,” she blurted out, knowing it was a lie.
“Would you wish what happened to you with your mother to happen to anyone else? It will happen to everyone else. The only thing we can do here is say goodbye. In the Abyss, I can’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”
“Last chance, Zolinski, or you’re going with him,” one of the Aeternali yelled.
“Then I go with him.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them, but she didn’t want to take them back.
“Marijka!”
“No. You got to choose. I get to choose. That’s how this works. You won’t stay with me, I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t want you,” he snarled.
Tears scalded her face. “Liar.”
“I don’t love you.” Each word was a measured stab.
“Even worse.” She inched closer to him, afraid of what he was becoming, but more afraid of letting him suffer it alone.
This. Right now. This was what Zoranna meant she had to face. Her darkest fear wasn’t the werewolves. It was losing the man she loved.
It was so much more than love. She’d seen this inside of him, but Marijka hadn’t felt it herself until now. Love was four simple letters crammed together to convey the breadth and width of the universe.
She took another step toward him and he backe
d away.
“No, Marijka. I release you.”
Marijka knew what she had to do. She had to pull back the dark curtain in his mind and she had to confront her fears and look inside. She reached out across the mind link and he turned away from her, held his hands out to stop her.
They shifted back and forth between paws and hands, gnarled and broken. His bones turned and cracked.
She grabbed them, uncaring that his claws tore into her hands.
“You can’t release me. I’m your mate. You are mine.”
In her mind’s eye, she flung the curtain back, but what she saw wasn’t so terrible. They were running beneath the moon in some secret glen, all the beauty of the night filling their. The best part was learning what it felt like to fly, running so far and so fast their paws never touched the earth. This scene was them. There was a wolf inside of her, there always had been, and Luka awakened her. That was the new voice she’d heard.
What was behind the curtain reflected truth and hope back at her.
The chanting grew louder and the static buzz in the air told Marijka she didn’t have much time.
Her fingers shook as she unlatched the armor from around her throat. Fear spiked and shot after shot of adrenaline rushed through her blood. Dread pooled low in her gut as memories of her mother played on a macabre slideshow in her head.
Even so, Marijka would not be dissuaded. The time for fear was over. If she regretted it, so be it. The virus would destroy any trace of it..
She dropped the armor.
“Give me your bite.”
“Weren’t you listening?” The timbre of his voice was subhuman, and sounded like it echoed up from the pits of hell rather than the creature in front of her. “I’m infected.”
“I know what you are.” She took the final step, closing that last bit of distance between them. The blue fibers throbbed through his black gaze. “And I know what I am.”
Marijka didn’t back down, didn’t even flinch when his human shape fell away and the infected beast stood before her.
She trembled, but she was sure of her choice. Eyes still locked on his, Marijka turned her head to the side slowly, exposing her neck for his bite.
He lunged toward her, growling as his jaws snapped in an iron vise around her throat. Marijka expected there to be pain, but there was only bliss and a certain rightness of the world as he claimed her.
Even with the lights blaring in her eyes, even with the voices chanting to rip a whole in the world, even knowing they’d be left in that endless darkness—warmth bloomed inside of her brighter and brighter until it exploded into a million stars.
Until there was nothing left of the world but them.
* * *
Luka Stansilav came back to the world one heartbeat at a time.
Each pulse of his mate’s heart, spilling her blood against his tongue, was poison to the virus. The cells in her blood were like Marijka herself, fierce and unyielding, launching themselves into enemy territory to hunt, destroy and take back what belonged to her.
When he realized what he’d done—bitten her, ravaged her—he tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let go. She clung to him the way she did when he made her scream his name in bliss. He eased the pressure of his bite, using his saliva to heal her wounds.
She sagged against him as her blood and the virus fought the same war inside of her that waged in him.
Luke didn’t doubt her victory for a single moment. He swept her up in his arms and looked for Kenneth. He’d heard his voice earlier, he’d been the one directing Marijka to leave the circle. “Bardot?”
The chanting stopped, but the power of the circle still thrummed in the air.
“Do we have a cure?” Bardot’s voice boomed across the crowd.
“We might,” Luka answered him.
“Get a medevac!” Bardot called, and the necromancers parted.
There was no question as to whether or not Luka was cured. The Aeternali Senator’s word was absolute.
“Hold on, Gypsy woman. Fight a little longer and you’ll never have to fight again.”
“I like fighting,” she croaked as he hauled her into the chopper with him.
Epilogue
Marijka had a scar.
It wasn’t a dainty or delicate scar—it was big, ugly and angry. The twisted and ropey flesh looked exactly like what it was: the fight of her life.
Marijka studied it and the woman she saw in the mirror. The scar was almost an incongruity with the pretty lace-trimmed silk lingerie. The material flowed against her skin, rippled with her movement, smooth and perfect. The flesh underneath was a jagged mess.
She didn’t mind having the indelible reminder that when she’d been knocked down, she’d come up swinging. In fact, the wolf inside of her loved it. The beast preened when it caught sight of it whether in human or primal form. The mark was something to be proud of because of what she’d survived...and she wore the mark of her mate.
The Alpha of Alphas. The strongest of them all had chosen her.
“Come to bed, malenkaya.”
Come to bed? As if it were that easy. Yes, he’d chosen her. She was proud to be his mate, but that didn’t mean he was done working for it. Marijka loved the chase as much as he did.
She strutted from the bathroom of the suite they’d rented in the Hertelendy Kastély hotel outside Budapest—a lover’s retreat before facing the world again. She’d been in a secret Aeternali hospital for two weeks as she healed and they studied the effects of her blood on the infection. The doctors wanted to keep her, study her, but Marijka refused to be caged. She’d give them all the samples they wanted, but she still had a job to do and that was at Luka’s side.
But this, now, was just for them and the way she strutted was for him alone.
His appreciative gaze followed her movements. She twisted this way and that, leaning over the edge of the balcony to give him a good view of her backside. The low, rumbling growl in his chest signaled she’d hit just the right note.
“Hmm. You think you’re in charge of something here, don’t you? Telling me when it’s time for bed,” she teased.
“I am most definitely in charge of something here, woman. And you like it.” A wolfish smile curved his mouth. He leaned forward on the bed and she knew he was about to to pounce.
“I like it when you prove it.” She hopped up on the edge of the balcony. “Catch me if you can.” Marijka leaped into the air, her body stretched and taut as her beast emerged. When she hit the ground, she didn’t look back. She didn’t have to. Marijka knew he’d be right behind her.
Part of the reason they’d chosen this place was the surrounding countryside. Kilometers of open space to run.
She pushed herself just hard enough to make him exert effort to catch her.
His long, sure strides swallowed up the ground between them until she could feel his breath on her flanks. Luka attacked, and they tumbled to a stop, both regaining their human forms.
The earth was moist and soft under her back, the grass a cool bed. The night’s scents were a complex bouquet, but they’d tattoo this moment into her memory. She inhaled deeply, and looked up into her mate’s face.
“Why do you like to run so much?” His hands closed gently around her wrists and he held them above her head as he nuzzled at her neck.
“The same reason you like to chase.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and arched her back to rub herself against him.
“It won’t be much of a victory if you keep doing that.”
She bucked up again. “Really? Because you know I like to see what it takes to make you lose control.” Marijka scraped her nails along his back.
“Doesn’t sound like much fun for you.” He pushed his hard length into her and gripped her hips. “I get to come and you get to watch.”
“That sounds like fun.” She’d gotten better at using the telepathic link between them for her own nefarious ends—like sending him her fantasies. This time she pushed her memory of
their encounter on the train to the forefront of his mind. How she felt while she touched herself for him—when he finally took her. What it was like wanting to break his control even as she feared it. “Turnabout is fair play, isn’t it?”
“No one ever accused me of playing fair.” He pushed back. His memories of being inside her, what he thought of her wrapped so tight and hot around him, pulling him deeper.
“So it’s to be dirty? I—oh!” He sucked her nipple into his mouth, abrading the pebbled flesh gently with his teeth.
She gave up all pretense of play and rocked against him, clutching at his shoulders to get closer. Marijka could never get close enough to him—she always wanted more sensation, more pleasure, more memories.
Yet, in that moment, when she opened her eyes and saw the stars twinkling above them the same as they had in her vision, Marijka knew being claimed by the Alpha was the only thing she needed.
* * * * *
Don’t miss the other sensual, paranormal reads from Harlequin Nocturne Cravings, available at www.ebooks.eharlequin.com and wherever ebooks are sold. Titles include:
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Looking for more paranormal romance? The sizzling and spine-chilling books of Harlequin Nocturne are available at www.Harlequin.com or your local bookstore.
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