by Mina Carter
Not a moment too soon either. She breathed a sigh of relief as she filled the bucket with hot water and added detergent. The fresh, clean scent of pine wafted up and cleared the smell of food from her nostrils. Her sense of smell had always been good, but today the cooking in the café had bothered her. Like, sick to the stomach bothered her. The fried eggs were the worst. Every time they’d hit the hotplate, the little she’d eaten for lunch had tried to vacate the premises.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, today was the day her cell phone had gone on strike. She’d put it to charge overnight, like normal, but this morning it had been as flat as a pancake. Not that she was waiting for anyone to contact her. She’d had to switch her number for a new pay-as-you-go one when she’d left home to stop anyone finding her. Didn’t matter though, the fact the blinking thing wasn’t working was enough to irritate the hell out of her. Probably because her period was late, she decided. She was always emotional this time of the month.
Rubbing a hand over her stomach, she tried to calm it. Just a few weeks into a new job the last thing she needed was to get sick. Not that she thought Mrs. Norris would fire her, but it didn’t look good, did it?
Wringing the mop with vicious twists, she slopped it on the floor and attacked the grime. What was it with people these days? Could they not keep the damn food on their plates? She glowered to herself as she scrubbed at several stains. Seemed like all of them had thrown their food on the floor. It was enough to make a person sick…
The chime on the door jangled. She sighed and closed her eyes for a second. The catch on the door didn’t work all the time, and she always forgot to throw the bolt.
“We’re closed, I’m afraid,” she called over her shoulder as she attacked a stubborn stain. “Open at nine tomorrow.”
Silence echoed behind her, and all the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Inside, her wolf roared to life, stronger than she’d ever felt the creature, and she turned, coming face to face with a familiar figure.
Veyr. Large as life. Right there in front of her.
“Shit,” she murmured as her world grayed around the edges. Reaching out, she grabbed for the nearest table to steady herself. Veyr started forward, but she warned him off with a glare. “Don’t you fucking dare. Just don’t.”
“Cyan, please.” His deep voice was like a balm to her senses, calming her. Which then just made her even more mad, because she didn’t want to be calmed, she wanted to know how the hell he’d found her.
“Go to hell.”
“I’m already there, little wolf.” His smile was sad and he pulled out a chair, retreating a step or two. “Please… sit before you fall.”
She didn’t want to, but good sense prevailed. Even though she wanted to stand as a beacon of strength and prove that his being here didn’t bother her in the slightest, that wasn’t going to happen. It was better to sit and be aloof than try it sprawled on the floor.
Her legs as wobbly as jelly, she eased forward and collapsed into the chair with zero grace. Unbidden, her hand stole over her stomach, and her wolf whittered at her in a smut tone. Our mate is here, it informed her with more than a healthy amount of I-told-you-so, but she ignored it as she looked at Veyr coldly.
He was thinner than she remembered. His cheeks were gaunt, and lines of exhaustion bracketed his lips. Her heart ached; the need to go to him, wrap her arms around him and comfort him was almost overwhelming. He wasn’t hers to comfort though. He belonged to another.
“What the hell is that stink?” He sneezed.
She pursed her lips. “Pine-scented floor cleaner. Wipes the nostrils clean, doesn’t it?”
He nodded, his eyes watering, and she relented. “Don’t worry, it’ll clear soon.”
Her good feeling didn’t last long though. She folded her arms.
“What are you doing here, Veyr?” she asked. “Don’t tell me that life with Vanessa has paled already?”
“No.”
His reply hardened her heart, and she rubbed her stomach again. Damn thing was doing an imitation of butterflies on acid.
“Because I don’t have one.”
“What… A life? Boohoo. You expect sympathy because your mate has you under the thumb?” One more answer like that and screw the floor, she was kicking him out, with the mop if need be. “Sorry, bud, tell it to someone who cares.”
He took a step forward, his expression careful, and she arched back, hands out and fingers extended, ready to fight. It was an instinctive gesture, one so Lycan she could have been the poster girl for a female Lycan self-defence group. It would have been totally ludicrous if her wolf hadn’t roared with rage, and razor-sharp claws burst from the ends of her fingers. Her eyes widened with surprise…
Her first ever shift, and it was a partial shift.
Not missing a beat, she bared her teeth. “One more step, buster, and I’ll have your balls on a plate.”
“I always knew you could shift.”
Veyr glanced from Cyan’s eyes to her new claws and back again. The pain there tore at his already bleeding heart. He’d done that. Hurt her so badly that her wolf had manifested itself to protect her. Finally.
Holding in the urge to sneeze again, he eased to his knees in front of her. A small lean forward was enough to put his throat in range of those glittering little claws and put himself at her mercy.
“Do it,” he urged in a soft voice, shuffling forward a little more until her fingertips rested against his throat. “I hurt you, and I am so, so sorry.”
Her lower lip quivered, and she bit it as though to stop it moving. Her eyes brimmed with tears. The need to surge forward, to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right, almost overwhelmed Veyr, but he forced himself to stay where he was. This had to be her decision.
Despite her shift, she’d forsaken the pack. She wasn’t one of his wolves, not anymore. He couldn’t coerce her in any way.
“You want me to kill you?” she demanded, anger making her words sharp. “Somehow I don’t think your mate would be happy about that, now would she?”
“I don’t know,” he arched his eyebrow. “Would you?”
She frowned in confusion. “Doesn’t matter what I think, does it? I’m not Vanessa.”
Moon save him from irritated females; she’d missed his point. He resisted the urge to sigh in frustration. Thankfully, that awful stink had begun to fade, or it would have tipped him into another sneezing fit.
“No, you’re not Vanessa. And she’s not my mate. She’s Jace’s mate. Has been for weeks.”
Cyan curled her fingers back, away from his throat, but didn’t retract her claws. His wolf grumbled at the loss of contact.
“Jace?”
He nodded. “Jace Trenton. New Alpha of the McCauley pack. He replaced Jacob.”
She blinked, not bothering to hide her surprise. “Jace is McCauley Alpha, and Vanessa is his mate? Why? Did she change her mind about you or something?”
“Change her mind…?” he asked, but his mind was only half on her question.
His sense of smell had filtered back after the assault from the pine-scented cleaner, and his wolf rumbled with contentment at his mate so near. It was like crack for his nose. Instantly, his body was all attention. All hers, for anything she might need, be that protection or something…else. Anything else, especially if it involved his arms wrapped tight around her, because if he was lucky enough to hold her again, he sure as hell wasn’t letting go.
There was something new in her scent though, and his eyes narrowed a little as he tried to work it out. Her wolf was far more dominant now. No surprise there. The creature was threatened enough to show itself to protect her, so it would overshadow her scent somewhat, but there was something else. Something elusive and almost hidden at the back, under the scent of Lycan, woman, and his mate.
His eyes widened as he realized what it was.
She was carrying his child.
Triumph and love surged hard and fast. He searched her eyes for
a hint of the secret she was hiding, but her expression was guileless, giving nothing away. He bit back his smile. She didn’t know that she was pregnant yet.
“Yes, changed her mind,” Cyan snapped, obviously in no mood for word games. “Perhaps she saw you for the l-low-down rat you…you…” Her voice broke and she launched to her feet, the chair clattering behind her as she fled into the kitchen. Ran from him.
Within a heartbeat, Veyr was on his feet. It was never wise to run from a predator, especially when you were that predator’s mate, and there was no way he was letting her out of his sight. Ever again.
3
Cyan barreled through the kitchen door and screeched to a halt in the middle of the tiled floor. Her heart pounded, and her new claws throbbed as she looked around in panic. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She had no idea how Veyr had found her, but now that he had, she couldn’t stay here.
The door banged behind her, and she whirled around to find him in the doorway. Baring her teeth, she hissed at him, and he stopped dead.
“Please, Cyan, just listen.” Hands out to the side, he took a careful step forward. “Just let me explain and then I’ll go away. I promise.”
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to rail at him…bellow and howl her pain and misery at what he’d done, then throw him out on his ear. How dare he stand there, looking so damn sexy with that penitent, unsure expression on his handsome face.
Begrudgingly, she nodded and the relief that washed over his face hit her right in the chest. In the heart she thought was shattered into a million pieces and broken beyond repair. Folding her arms, she backed up the nod with a glare.
“Talk. And make it quick. If I don’t like what you say, you leave. If not, I call the police, clear?”
“Thank you.” He stood in front of her with none of the usual swagger she associated with him, and now that she looked—really looked—his suit hung a little loose on his broad shoulders. Oh, he was still packed with muscle, no suit and shirt could disguise that, but he was leaner. Much leaner.
“I’m not mated to Vanessa, and I never touched her. I swear.” His eyes entreated her to believe him, and despite her vow to herself to stay unmoved by anything he had to say, a tiny tendril of hope uncurled in the center of her chest.
“Jacob set the whole thing up, got her into our room while you were away, and then had the whole council on hand when he burst in to ‘find’ her. He’d been beating the poor girl for a week, knocked her clean out…she didn’t remember a thing.”
Cyan’s breath left her in a rush, and she stepped backward to grasp the counter behind her. She’d known Jacob was a no-good piece of shit, but this? This she hadn’t expected…How could any wolf stoop so low?
She lifted her head and speared him with a hard look. “Okay, but you let him. At the first sign of trouble you forgot all about us, about the promise you made to me, and caved in.”
Her hand lifted of its own accord to brush against the scar on her shoulder, and he winced.
Score one for Cyan.
“I did…I was too concerned with pack honor and my position to consider how it would affect us. Please Cyan…” He took a step forward, and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “Tell me how I can make this right.”
Taking a shuddering breath, she stood upright. “You can’t. I’m forsaken, remember? As in, not a wolf, not part of a pack anymore. I’m nothing to do with your life.”
“I love you.”
The words dropped into the silence between them and her breath caught. Hope wanted to expand, crawl into every cell in her body, but the heartache of the past few weeks wouldn’t let go. When she didn’t move his eyes filled with utter defeat and a bleakness so complete that her heart ached in her chest.
Her wolf roared at her, furious that she wasn’t running into the arms of their mate, but then Veyr lifted his head. He smiled tightly. “No, but that means a fresh start. One kiss, little wolf, that’s all I ask. If you can kiss me and remain unmoved, I’ll go.”
She froze. Not in fear, but something else. As lethal a reputation as Veyr had, as much as he could pick her up and carry her off, she knew he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t lift a hand to hurt her. But a kiss… She could handle a little kiss, after everything that had been between them, surely?
Lifting her chin, she challenged him with a glare. “A kiss won’t prove anything. We kissed plenty of times.”
But her words fell on deaf ears. He took a step forward, then another, until she was pinned in the corner where the counters met. Hands on either side of her, his body was a cage holding her in place, but not once did his eyes leave hers.
“A kiss. One. That’s all.”
The deep temptation of his voice wound around her, and her body relaxed. It remembered him. Remembered how safe and loved she’d felt in his arms. She gave the smallest nod, almost imperceptible, but he saw it. Triumph surged in his eyes for a split second before he closed the last little gap between them.
“Believe me when I say I love you,” he whispered, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you and I am so, so sorry.”
Her body hummed with awareness as his lips covered hers. Then all bets were off. His kiss wasn’t soft, nor was it rough. Instead, it was the most intense kiss she’d ever been treated to. She tried to steel herself to stay still as his mouth slanted over hers, kissing and caressing, but within seconds she felt her body weakening. His tongue slid over the seam of her lips to request access. With a sigh, she opened for him and he pushed inside and took over.
His tongue slid against hers, stroking and caressing, seeking all her secrets and demanding her response. The soft whimper in the back of her throat was unbidden, instinctive, but she didn’t care. She needed this. Needed to be in his embrace again. Lifting on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss him back.
Then, gently, he pulled away and looked down at her with warmth in his eyes. “That doesn’t seem unmoved to me, little wolf.”
“Hmmm, maybe a little,” she admitted, watching him warily. “But how does this change anything?”
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and then opened them to spear her with a direct gaze. His hand spread out at the back of her waist, stroking gently. “I was an idiot. A total idiot. Jacob played me and the first thing I should have done was talk to you. I should have walked…given up being Master because nothing, nothing, will ever be as important as you are.”
His voice rang with truth, honesty in his eyes and she nibbled at her lower lip. “So…why? Why did you agree to—you put me aside, Veyr. For what?”
“My stupid pride that I could do everything by myself. Sort it all out. I was never going to mate Vanessa,” he admitted in a low voice. “Jace and I, we had it all worked out. But, I should have told you. If I could go back and do it over…”
She sighed, straightening her back. This was it. Make or break time. She’d been born from an alpha-line, and there was no use crying over spilled milk. “Well, you can’t. What’s done is done, we just have to deal with it now.”
His lips curled into a hopeful little smile that took her breath away. “Really? You believe me?”
He whooped and snatched her up into his arms, kissing her soundly. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she held tight as he spun her. Then he stopped, sliding her down his body and deepened the kiss.
Heat surged, taking her by surprise, and she pulled at his shirt. He gasped, then smiled against her lips. Buttons popped, and she sighed in relief as she slid her hands under his shirt and over the warm, hard planes of his chest.
“You just had to say the word, little wolf,” he rumbled, his lips a hairsbreadth from hers.
But she didn’t want to talk. She wanted to touch him and have him touch her. Her body had been too long away from his, and now it wanted, burned with need. Her wolf yipped in delight as she nibbled along his jaw, her fingertips seeking his nipples. She rubbed them. Pinched them.
Veyr dropped his head back, eyes pressed closed. When he looked back down at her, his eyes were maxed out with amber, and the hard lines of his wolf showed in his cheekbones.
“You’re mine,” he promised, voice rough. “No rubbish about forsaken. You’re mine. Forever.”
She shivered at the possessive tone. There was no other way. She’d always belonged to him, right from that first moment they’d met in the palace ballroom. Only a fool would think otherwise.
Her nod seemed to be all he needed. Eyes dark with desire, he crowded her more, hands on her waist to boost her up onto the counter. His lips blazed a trail of fire down her throat to the gypsy neckline of her top, and he yanked it aside to continue across her shoulder. Another shiver hit her when his lips found her scar, the one he’d given her. When he licked across it, a bolt of heat arrowed through her body right down to her core.
“Mine, all mine,” he mumbled again splaying his hand over the back of her hips. A quick yank pulled her up hard against him, and she moaned at the feel of his cock pressing against her pussy. An answering quiver made her clench hard around nothing, and she moaned, rocking against him.
“Soon,” he whispered, as though reading her mind. So in tune with her, as though he could predict what she needed before she even knew it. Sliding a hand down her leg, he slid it under the long skirt she wore. Her ballerina pumps were long gone, lost on the floor when he’d lifted her, so she wrapped her foot around his calf. He teased her with his hand, stroking it over her thigh and up onto her hip as he claimed her lips again.
This time the kiss was no-holds-barred. Tongue dueling with hers, his fingertips found the edge of her panties. He broke away from her lips with a gasp. “Fuck…we have to stop. Or I won’t be able to.”
“Then don’t.”
He swore, a mixture of need and relief, and yanked her panties down with sharp, jagged pulls that betrayed the cracks in his control. Clutching his shoulders, she lifted her ass to help. A second later her underwear dropped to the floor. Reaching between them, he tore open the fly of his pants and pressed against the entrance to her body.
