by Laina Kenney
The little boy in her arms wriggled closer and smiled a gummy baby smile that melted her heart.
“What a beautiful little boy,” Emma said dreamily, stroking his soft cheek. He snuggled with her a moment longer, then lurched toward his mother.
Ellie caught him with practiced hands, and he bounced in her arms and squealed with happiness.
Kuhr and Balke approached, and the boy launched himself at Balke who snagged him out of the air and held him up above his head. The baby chortled with glee and kicked his little feet. Balke waved the boy gently back and forth and made airplane noises.
Emma turned to smile up at Kuhr and found Liliya between them.
Fine.
She turned away with no idea of where she was going. She just couldn’t watch a second longer.
A hard hand wrapped around her wrist, and she was dragged behind Kuhr, too startled to struggle at first.
“Stop it,” she hissed, but he just kept going.
She had to almost run to keep up, since one of his strides would make two of hers. By the time he stopped in the small clearing where the cars were parked, she was ready to punch him.
The moment he stopped, she wrenched her arm free and turned on him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“No what is wrong with you?” His voice was clipped, and she could tell that he was pissed.
Well, he had better watch it, because so was she.
“Nothing,” she said. She turned to go back, but with a quick movement he was in front of her.
She halted and firmed her mouth.
He snorted and folded brawny arms over his wide chest, using his strong body as a barrier to keep her in one place.
She swallowed her resentment and said nothing.
“There is clearly something wrong. You were sweet and happy this morning, and now you are angry. You will hardly look at me. Saying nothing is wrong would be ridiculous.”
Emma didn’t have any intention of talking about her embarrassing assumptions about him and a relationship that they might have been building in front of all the interested eyes currently watching.
“I was going to get the last jar of cookies from the car, but if you’re so inclined, you could do me a favor and carry them over to that huge table.”
“Emma—”
Emma turned and pointed into the middle of a crowd of children exactly where he had no doubt just been.
A soft deep growl vibrated through her bones, and she thought for sure he would challenge her about her half truth, but he turned smartly on his heel and headed for the car.
“The dinner won’t start for about half an hour,” Iselle said quietly, walking up behind her. “If you wanted some thinking time, that little trail marked with blue slashes takes about ten minutes to walk, but it comes out to the prettiest little hilltop where you can see the city in the distance. Balke takes me up there sometimes just to sit at the top and breathe in the peace.”
Emma didn’t have the words to tell her friend how much her thoughtfulness meant. She gave Iselle a quick hug, took a deep breath, and walked off up the well-marked trail hopefully to find some inner balance.
Chapter 14
After a few minutes of solitude, Emma felt a little less stressed. The trail was a little rough underfoot, and it took some attention to navigate without tripping. The cool air was fresh and sweet, and her spirits lifted a little more with each step away from Kuhr and the little bimbo who had destroyed her emotional balance.
As she walked, she tried to convince herself she would be happier without him around, but it was a losing battle.
Though the small burns and cuts were healed, she could still feel each one like a brand on her soul. Each time she closed her eyes she could feel the burn of the cigarette stinging her flesh to make her answer the dealer’s questions, each random placement building on the pain and terror of the previous one until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only whimper and hate.
Until he had appeared out of nowhere, and freed her. All thick muscles and burning blue eyes, he had swooped in like an avenging angel, sliced through the ropes that held her and caught her before she could hit the floor.
She might not win Prince Charming in the end, but she couldn’t say that she didn’t want to. She might have to lie to everyone else to save her pride, but she wouldn’t stoop low and lie to herself—she wanted him.
There was a faint sound behind her, a movement of air, and Emma froze in place. All the fine hairs lifted on her body. She didn’t know if it was terror or anger that held her in place, but she breathed deep and waited. She was going to fight this time, no matter what. She would never be a victim again.
She heard that whisper of sound again and stepped quietly to the edge of the path where she would be able to surprise someone. If there really was someone behind her, she would be in a position of strength. If her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry as the desert, it couldn’t be helped.
She readied herself, but the man who came around the stand of pines was Kuhr.
Her soul reached out toward him even as her arms did, and she cuddled into him even as his strong arms came around her.
She nuzzled against him and breathed in the clean scent of his body, heart pounding in relief.
In his arms, she was the safest person in the world.
“You had a very fierce look on your face just now,” he said, rubbing her back lazily. “Were you thinking of hitting me, perhaps?”
“Yes. But, Kuhr, I didn’t know it was you,” she began, but the whisper of sound came again from beside her, and her head snapped to the side to stare at a blackberry bush in flower.
The rustling leaves parted, and a graceful black wolf bounded up to them and circled.
Kuhr pushed Emma behind him and waved his hand at the wolf in a shooing motion, but it continued to leap around them. Emma cocked her head to one side. The animal was clearly looking for attention.
“Kuhr, I think it’s just playing,” she said slowly.
Kuhr ignored her.
“Go away,” he said to the animal. “You should not be following us. It is not proper, and your father will be worried if you just wander off.”
Emma frowned. He was talking to the wolf as if he knew the animal personally, as if it could understand him.
She was about to speak, to question him, but just as she opened her mouth, there was a bright shimmer of sparks, and the wolf became the elegant young woman from the picnic, fully clothed in the pretty flowing dress.
Emma stumbled backward, and her back hit a tree trunk, pulse pounding furiously in her ear. She put a hand to her mouth to hold back a shout. The world turned gray around the edges, but she hung on desperately and breathed through it.
The rough warmth of the tree bark against her back helped to steady her.
The wolf was a girl. Or, the girl was a wolf?
“Smarten up,” Kuhr said sharply, and the girl ducked her head, but not before Emma saw the mischievous grin on her face.
Kuhr wasn’t surprised, more…annoyed? Emma shook her head. He obviously knew about her…ability? Talent? Furriness? Whatever the hell?
Emma turned away so quickly she stumbled, and that was enough time for him to reach her.
How could he be so fast?
She sobbed once as his arm came around her, and she fought the embrace even though that was where she most wanted to be. His arm tightened, squeezing the breath from her, and she hung limp against his strength, subdued easily, not by his muscle, but by her own traitorous desire to be held by him.
He turned her to face him. She let her cheek drop against his wide chest and tried to breathe normally. After a moment, she straightened, stood on her own, and he let her.
Was he one of them, too? Her breath caught in her throat. Was he a wolf who walked as a man?
“I just wanted you—” the girl began, coming up beside them.
“I know what you wanted, Liliya. You made it clear.” Ku
hr’s voice was hard and the girl’s face fell. “You also heard my answer, and that was more than clear.”
“But, Kuhr, we—”
“Go back,” he said firmly. “You should not be here.”
If it hadn’t been Kuhr that she wanted, Emma could have almost felt sorry for her. Whatever the girl was, she had feelings that could be hurt.
Against her better judgment, Emma put her hand on his arm.
“You can make your point without being cruel,” she said, and he turned to her. “It doesn’t have to be—” She stopped. His eyes were glowing an eerie blue with an aura of rainbow black, like the finest high-grade pearl in the crowns of royalty. Like the girl’s eyes had glowed just as she changed.
Emma licked her dry lips and tried to fight against an insidious natural suspicion. A stream of thoughts raced through her mind, memories of his strength, his reflexes, his speed and stamina. Her cheeks flushed, and her heart picked up until she thought it would pound its way out of her chest.
“Umm, is there anything you’d like to tell me?” she asked him. She was trying for a reasonable tone, but it came out a little too fast and too high.
Kuhr stepped closer and stroked a hand down to cup her cheek.
“My Emma.”
“Oh, why does it matter to you what a human thinks anyway?” Liliya’s petulant tone broke through Kuhr’s tender voicing of her name, but Emma didn’t spare the girl a glance. All her attention was on him.
Chapter 15
His mate said not to be cruel, but Kuhr didn’t see it that way. He had been kind for a long time, and Liliya was the daughter of a friend, but now she was interfering between a male and his mate. That was beyond anything that he could be expected to be kind about.
His Emma wouldn’t understand it, but if Liliya continued on her course, he would turn the matter over to the Clan Council to discipline the girl. He was within his rights to challenge a male for doing the same thing she was trying to do.
“Liliya, step back now, or this matter must go before the Clan Council.”
The girl looked like he had just slapped her. She was so shocked.
“But she is a human!”
“I am aware.”
Kuhr took a firm grip on his rising frustration level.
He knew Liliya’s family well, and he had watched her grow from a vivacious little girl to a pretty young woman, but she wasn’t his mate. He knew it was rude, but he just wanted Liliya to go away so that he could go back to kissing and teasing his beautiful Emma.
He had planned to satisfy his mate and then gently lead her around to the idea of his vulfen nature. Perhaps he would have even shifted for her to show her his other form. He was not a vain man, but his wolf would very much enjoy being admired by its mate. He would have knelt at her feet in both forms to show his devotion, but now the jealousy of a young woman who had never had any encouragement from him was getting in the way of his wonderful plan.
He found himself on the thin edge of control, fangs itching and eyes glowing in mixed aggravation and lust. It was a good thing when Liliya transformed and fled in her wolf form. The vulfen Clan Council did not take such transgressions lightly, and neither would Liliya’s parents.
He wanted to speak to his mate tenderly, to answer her questions and ease any fears she might have, but one look down at the stubborn tilt to her mouth, and he knew that it would be a long battle for reason and acceptance. He was further from his goal in this instant than he had been an hour ago.
His claws emerged and he threw back his head and roared out his frustration.
* * * *
Kuhr roared and Emma wrapped her arms around her middle.
“Why do you look at me that way?” he challenged. “I have guarded you for days, weeks. I would not harm you now. Or ever. I am no different now than I was five minutes ago. Talk to me.”
She didn’t respond to that. He stared at her, seeming to be waiting, but she didn’t even know what he was looking for.
“Emma, will you not even speak to me?”
If he wanted her to talk, wanted to know what was wrong, what difference would it make to her? She was already hurt. She might as well tell him everything and get it out.
“Fine. If you want someone else, fine. It’s not like you made me any promises,” she said, but she had to stop there. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, and the idea hurt.
He blinked. “You think I want someone else? A woman not you?”
“Of course a woman. I’m not blind. I saw her. I saw you. I saw her and you.”
She waved her hands in a wide gesture to encompass Liliya and Kuhr and wolves and everything weird and crazy that she had seen and heard. If he didn’t get it, too bad, because she didn’t have words to describe how the world was wrong all of a sudden.
He frowned. “I do not want someone else. There is no other woman for me. I said it. You have the wrong idea in your mind.”
“I saw you,” Emma insisted.
“I assume you mean Liliya,” Kuhr said, and Emma made a rude gesture that raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, I mean Liliya,” she said. “Of course. She’s beautiful, and she was all over you. She couldn’t take her eyes off of you, and she was stroking your chest. If you make her an offer, she’ll take you up on it in a heartbeat. Just like I did.” Emma blinked back tears and tried to take a deep breath. “I understand that you’re my bodyguard. Just my bodyguard. I get it. But then keep your hands off me and don’t play me off against some other girl.”
He grabbed her hand and held it when she tried to pull away. He reeled her in close to his chest and secured her with strong arms.
“Stop struggling, you little wildcat,” he breathed against her cheek. “I need to explain about Liliya so that you will understand.”
“Oh, I understand.” Emma didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. “I can see what’s right in front of my face. I’m smart that way.”
“You are jealous. Are you saying that you understand how I feel? You will not even let me tell you, so how could you understand?”
“That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I do understand. I’m not judging. I’m not complaining. Liliya is beautiful. I can see that. You can have whoever you want—”
“Oh, good,” he purred and picked her up in his big arms. Her heart picked up speed, and she could hardly breathe as he pulled her closer to his chest and settled his mouth firmly over hers.
The kick of arousal was instant. The dark taste of him fizzed through her blood like champagne bubbles, intoxicating and lighter than air.
His arms tightened until he almost cut off her breathing, but she was dizzy already from his potent kiss.
“Liliya is a child to me, not even twenty,” he said. “Do you hear me? She is young and just beginning to feel her power as a woman. But she is not my mate.”
Emma froze with his lips a bare inch from hers. She could feel the mingling of their quick breaths and her lips tingled.
“Mate?”
“Yes, mate.” He nipped her delicate unpierced earlobe, and she shivered with heat. His lips continued down the column of her throat and settled to tease a spot so sensitive it was all she could do to speak. The same spot he always nibbled, the spot that seemed somehow connected inside her so that her pussy throbbed with want every time he kissed her there.
“Have you”—she cleared her throat—“met your mate yet?”
His dark chuckle traveled down her spine to settle between her thighs.
“I have.”
Emma shivered in lust and disappointment as his tongue snaked out to swirl over her throbbing pulse.
She tried not to ask, but some part of her with no sense overruled and she blurted, “Then what are you doing here with me?”
“Oh, my Emma, I think you know the answer, do you not?”
Emma couldn’t say another word.
“I think you feel it as I do, this warm connection between us that pulls us together. Do you not know in some way wh
en I am near you? Do you not feel it?” he went on, and she could feel the words vibrating against her skin and in her heart. “You are my mate.”
His mate. The nerves in her stomach fluttered in feminine approval.
Emma’s fingers itched to stroke his hard jaw. He was grinding his teeth. She wanted those strong arms around her, and his mouth on hers stealing all her senses, halting her thought processes until the taste of his mouth was the center of her world.
But she didn’t know if he wanted that, or if he would ever want that again with her. And she didn’t want it either, if it was something that he shared with others.
“You don’t really want me. I’ll do because I’m here, but I know who you really want.”
“Do not be so sure you know what I want,” he said, his gaze fixed on her face. “I have been speaking for myself for many years, and I said I want you. I have never said those words to Liliya, or any other female here.”
Emma snorted. “I notice you didn’t say that you have never said those words to any other woman.”
Kuhr set her on her feet, but kept his hands on her arms.
“I do not play with women, but I am an adult male.”
She looked at his body involuntarily. He sure was.
“Even if I had only had one encounter with a female each year of my adult life, you can see how the numbers would begin to add up by the age of thirty-six.” He sounded frustrated and she could see that he was.
As much as she hated to admit it, he had a point.
“Okay, fine, I concede that point,” she said with ill grace, and he barked out a laugh.
He sketched a bow. “Thank you for your understanding. Now perhaps we can take our agreement on this one step further and agree that I am allowed to decide for myself who it is that I want.”
His eyes glowed faintly blue in his tanned face.
Emma knew she could be pretty with an hour of good planning and a skillful application of makeup, but she had never been beautiful. She was dependable, a rock-solid friend, and she could cook like nobody’s business, but that wasn’t exactly the stuff that male fantasies were made of. And Kuhr was a female fantasy come to life, everything she had ever wanted in a man, and he was standing right in front of her looking cool and stunningly gorgeous. What was he doing with her anyway?
