Wolf's Secret (Alpha's Hunger Book 2)

by Carina Wilder

  No. No way, I thought. I’m not doing this. I’m not going to let him just get away with hiding everything. We’re supposed to be honest with each other, damn it.

  Damn his wolf. Damn his moods. Damn his stubbornness.

  I needed answers.

  “You need to find a way to open up to me, Tristan,” I muttered, holding back the tears that were aching to tumble down my cheeks. “Or this relationship of ours will never work.”

  He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—look at me. For a few seconds he just stared into the distance, his jaw set in a stubborn refusal to speak.

  But I waited, my eyes locked on his face—that perfect, aggravatingly sexy set of lips. That angular nose, the square jaw. Every inch of him was sexy. Every inch begged for kisses, for bites, for the stroke of a finger. It was hard to stay angry when he looked like that. But I was managing to hold onto my rage this time, to embrace it, to weaponize it. I wasn’t going to give in until he gave me something. Anything.

  “I know,” he finally growled under his breath. “I know. I don’t want to lose you, beautiful. Not for anything. Just…give me time. I need time.”

  Not good enough.

  “Seriously?” I asked, slamming my palms into the table so hard that the cutlery leapt up like I’d startled it awake. When the other diners turned to stare, I lowered my voice to whisper-yell, “How much time do you need? You’re over two hundred years old. If you haven’t learned to open up yet, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  He balled his right hand into a fist and lifted it to chin level, threatening to drive it down onto the tabletop and mirror my outburst. But at the last second, he pulled it back towards his chest, reclaiming the control that he’d nearly lost. “I’ve never wanted to open myself up,” he said. “Not once over the course of two centuries. Not like I do with you.”

  I spoke the words quietly. “So do it. Tell me about that man. Give me something to prove that you’re trying.”

  Just then the waiter appeared, laid a large plate of delicious-smelling food between us, and took off.

  Tristan’s eyes met mine again, and I saw again how alive his wolf had grown inside him, how close to the surface of his skin. That damned beast was a blessing and a curse at once. He was the reason Tristan was alive today for me to love. But he was also the reason my lover kept himself locked away from me.

  “That man—the one you saw,” he said, “is known around here as the Marquis. He’s a wolf shifter. He serves the Seven, but I know him for other reasons.”

  “The Seven,” I repeated. “I heard you mention them in the meeting of the Leaders, in Manhattan. Krane mentioned them, too. But I don’t really understand what or who they are.”

  Tristan let out a sigh that told me it wasn’t a topic he was particularly crazy to talk about. To his credit, he proceeded. “The Seven are the most powerful shifters in the world. Seven creatures who could take down cities, if they chose to. One of them lives on each continent. They try to control shifters like me, to dictate how we rule over our districts. If we do anything that displeases them, they punish us for it. It’s like a game they play, only usually it’s not a lot of fun.”

  I leaned forward. “You’re talking about dragons,” I whispered. “You have to be.”

  “Yes, I am,” he said, eyeing me, one eyebrow raised. “Of course, I’d almost forgotten that you’ve seen one. You saw my brother in his shifted form.”

  I nodded, recalling once again how I’d felt the night my eyes had met the horrifying silhouette of Krane’s inner beast. He was a nightmare in the sky, a shadow on my soul. I wasn’t sure how Tristan—or even an army—could protect me from that man if he ever decided to come for me. “He was pretty terrifying, in more ways than one.”

  “Krane is almost tame, compared to some of them,” Tristan said. “He’s a pain in the ass, but there are a few who are truly monsters.”

  “Do you know all of them?” I asked. “All seven, I mean?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting one. His name is Nero. He lives out on the west coast, though he makes sure his underlings know he’s in control of this country. He’s threatened to take down New York on more than one occasion. The Valkyries are the only thing keeping him at bay.”

  “So all you really know about the others are rumors of their existence,” I said.

  “Not rumors,” Tristan said. “I’ve seen a few of them in action.” His lips tightened into a grimace. “I’ve seen what they do to shifters who defy them. As for knowing all of them, there is one whose name I don’t know. They say she lives in Europe, and that she’s the most powerful of all of them. Other shifters refer to her as the Dragon-Lady.”

  “So they’re basically nasty pieces of work who keep you under their thumbs,” I said. “Which means they keep all of us under their thumbs.”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “Are all dragon shifters jackasses?” I asked. “Because they seem like serious douches.” Estella, the shifter who’d hosted the Midsummer Ball, was the exception—she’d annoyed me, but at least she was relatively friendly. Then again, it was probably her Valkyrie half that kept her decent.

  Tristan took a sip of water. “I met my first one when I was a relatively young man. Let’s just say that it was…not a good thing. I’ve vowed ever since to keep my world as separate from theirs as I can. To do everything I can to fight them back, to keep them away from the people I care about.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What would they do to those people?”

  “You name it. They have little to no humanity. They’re monsters in every conceivable way.” He stared at me for a second, cupped a hand around the back of my head and kissed me hard, then pressed his forehead to mine. I could feel the tension in his hand and hear the need in his voice. “That’s only one of the reasons I was so angry to know that Krane had come near you. My brother isn’t kind, Ariana. He’s cruel. He’s sadistic.”

  “But he’s not one of the Seven,” I said. No, of course he wasn’t. Tristan had said there was one on each continent, and North America already had its dragon leader in Nero.

  “No, he’s not exactly. But he does have a certain loyalty to their cause—more loyalty than he’s ever shown me. He’s been known to do the Seven’s dirty work for them. If they need someone punished, Krane is their man.”

  Invisible, icy fingers traced their way down my spine. “You mean…”

  “I mean he’s killed for them,” Tristan said. “Much as I hate the thought, my brother has occasionally acted as an executioner for the cruelest band of shifters on the planet. I suspect he’ll do it again next time they ask.”

  I pulled back, my gaze moving down to the floor as I processed that information. “Wow. I’m really sorry,” I said.

  “For what?”

  I dared a look at Tristan’s eyes, which seemed to have faded a little from their previous luminescence. His wolf had retreated, allowed his human side to regain control over his emotions. “For the loss of your brother,” I said. “I know what it is to lose someone you love. Only…”

  “Only?”

  “Only Krane is still alive,” I said. “What’s that saying…Where there’s life, there’s hope? Maybe he can find his humanity under all the layers of nastiness. Maybe his dragon can be tamed?”

  Tristan shook his head. “The creature inside him is strong. I’m not so sure the man is strong enough to fight him back. Not anymore.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, pondering what I knew of Tristan’s domineering brother. “I think he might surprise us both someday.”

  “All I can say to that,” Tristan replied, taking a swig of beer, “is let’s hope he doesn’t.”

  Chapter 21

  I thought I’d detected a note of sadness in Tristan’s voice when he was talking about Krane, and not just the usual shades of rage that emerged when his brother became the topic at hand. It was almost like he missed him. I couldn’t blame him for it. They’d had so much potential to
be close when they were young. Potential that had been torn away by forces beyond their control.

  As we ate in silence, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tristan had said about his sibling being more dragon than man. Krane seemed to be the polar opposite of a Lesser like Marcus. My housemate was stuck in his human form, craving the beast who lived somewhere deep inside him. Marcus would never be complete without his inner animal.

  But Krane would never be complete without his human side.

  Still, the last thing I wanted to do right now was talk any more about Krane. Things had come too close to volatility between Tristan and me earlier, and all I wanted was to find some tiny taste of the happiness we’d felt earlier when we’d gone swimming in the Magic Lake. I wanted the joyful Tristan back, the one who worshipped my body and peppered my skin with hungry kisses.

  I wanted my lover back.

  The good news was that apparently he felt the same way. “Come on,” he said when we’d finished eating, stretching out a hand for me to take. He rose to his feet, pulling me with him. “The hotel’s only two blocks away. We can walk back; I’ll get Kara to pick up the car and stow it somewhere for the night. In the meantime, I need to take my tension out on that body of yours for a few hours. It feels like years since I’ve been inside you.”

  “You read my mind,” I replied, a relieved smile curling my lips. “This has been a hell of a long day.”

  “You’re telling me, lover.”

  We walked down the street in silence, our hands tightly clasped together. I reminded myself as we went that Tristan and I had made massive strides over the past several hours. He’d opened up the vault that contained all his deeply buried emotions, all the demons that haunted him. He’d let me in for a moment, and that was worth more to me than anything in this world. I was finally beginning to understand the pain of his past.

  And now all I wanted was to make him forget it.

  When we reached the hotel’s lobby, Tristan called over the receptionist, who handed him a key. Kara must have told her to keep an eye out for him.

  “Let’s hurry it up,” Tristan said, pressing his palm into my lower back as we headed towards the elevator. “I want you on the bed as soon as possible. I want to forget all the darkness and enjoy a little light for a few hours.”

  I stopped when we reached the elevator and turned his way, grabbing his shirt and pulling him close. I studied his chiseled, heavily stubbled jawline, his perfect eyes, his full lips. “Am I really your light?” I asked. “Am I enough for you?”

  “What kind of a question is that?” he asked, pressing the button to take us up. “You’re everything to me.”

  “I’m not everything,” I said. “I can’t be. You have entire cities to look after. Hell, you even have a hospital in Chicago to look after. You protect your own. You deal with armies of Valkyries. Sometimes I think I’m a distraction for you, and nothing more.”

  He cocked his head to the side. He was studying me, reading me like he was trying to figure out if I really meant what I was saying. “So you really don’t know what you mean to me,” he said, his voice filled with wonder.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, you’ll know soon enough,” he said as the elevator doors slid open. We stepped inside. If the place had been more than three stories I might have expected him to hit the emergency stop and tie me up again. “I’ll worship your body with my tongue until you come a half dozen times tonight,” Tristan said as the doors whooshed shut again. “Maybe that will teach you to question my adoration.”

  “Sex is just sex, Tristan,” I said. “You know what I’m talking about. It’s more than that.”

  He stepped behind me, encasing me in his heat. Slipping his arms around my waist he pulled me against him gently and kissed my neck. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever truly desired, Ariana,” he said. “I’ve never felt possessive or jealous in my life. But I was insane with rage and envy when I thought there was a chance that you were attracted to my brother, that you could stray from me, from our bond. I thought I’d lost you. I saw in that moment that there was a chance that you weren’t as attached to me as I’d hoped. It nearly destroyed me.”

  I pulled free and turned around, looking into his eyes to see if he could possibly be serious. “How could you think that?” I asked. “How could you not know how I feel about you?”

  “Because I know how flawed I am,” he said. “I know I’m imperfect. I’ve hurt people. I’ve failed people. If you knew my past, you’d understand…”

  I shook my head. “Your past is long gone. All that matters is now. Us, here. In this place.” I pressed up onto my toes and kissed him. “All that matters is you and me.”

  “Then you should know that you’re more than enough for me, lover. You’re my whole world.”

  When we’d entered the suite on the third floor, Tristan made his way to an armchair by the window and sat down, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it open. The street lamp outside illuminated him just enough to reveal a powerful six-pack, the shadowy dark all but hiding the woven pattern of angry scars that decorated his flesh.

  Seeing him like that made me smile, and for a moment I forgot everything that had been troubling us both. He looked unscathed, like we’d somehow walked back in time to the days when he was a young man, before his troubles had ever begun.

  It was an ugly irony to think that if he hadn’t been changed—if he hadn’t been through whatever had brought him to the present—I’d never have met him. He would have died sometime in the nineteenth century, a mortal with few stories to tell.

  “Come to me,” he said softly, reaching out a hand towards me, his eyes closed. “I want you near me.”

  I slipped over and stood in front of him, the warm southern breeze flowing in from an open window to my right. I pulled my dress off over my head and slipped my panties and bra off.

  “Beautiful girl,” he murmured, prying his eyes open to slip them over my curves as I climbed on top of him, tucking my knees to either side of his hips.

  He intertwined his fingers behind my lower back, leaning forward to kiss me between my breasts. I dipped backwards, an aching desire eating away at my core. I arched my back, taking in the sensation—that glorious anticipation of what I knew was to come—and pressed myself hard into his erection through his clothing.

  “Every day with you is like Christmas,” I murmured as he nuzzled my nipple with his nose before pursing his lips around it. “I always know there’s a hidden surprise coming. I can’t wait to open it. And when I do, it’s even better than what I’d hoped for.” With that, I pulled upright, reached down, and undid his pants.

  “Some days you don’t like the surprises so much,” he said, but his lips ticked up into a smile that told me today would be a good Christmas.

  “I like the one that’s waiting for me in here,” I said, gesturing to his fly.

  He lifted his hips obediently, letting me drag his pants and boxers to the floor as I slipped off the chair.

  He fisted his erection, holding it out on full display and reminding me just how beautiful his cock was. “Merry Christmas,” he said. “Want to sit on Santa’s lap?”

  “Dirty boy. You know I do.” I climbed on top of him again, guiding him inside my throbbing opening inch by glorious inch. It had only been two days since we’d last made love, but somehow it felt like an eternity. My body had forgotten how overpowering a sensation it was to feel him fill me up as though he was a piece of some puzzle that I’d been seeking all my life.

  I rolled my hips against him, moaning with the slow onset of agonizing pleasure that came from our bond. As I stared into my lover’s eyes I felt renewed, like this was our first time all over again. Every time with Tristan felt like this, like I began as an innocent, virginal thing who’d never fully experienced the sheer erotic wonder of a powerful man. Tristan was my teacher, my mentor. He’d taught me to cherish every corporeal sensation, to thrive on the delights of the flesh.
r />   But I was his instructor, as well.

  I taught him what it was to have a loving mouth tend needfully to his throbbing dick. What it was to have an eager pussy tighten around him until he could barely stand it anymore. I’d taught him what true attraction could do to a woman, how aroused, how hungry I was for fulfilment.

  These moments of renewal were what we lived for. They were our therapy, our means of healing. They got us past the moments of grim remembrance to thoughts, fantasies, of a beautiful future.

  “Fuuuuuck,” Tristan gasped, no doubt going crazy with how slowly I was slipping up and down his length, milking him methodically, tenderly, my pussy tightening each time I lowered myself. I’d learned to tease his every nerve ending, to prolong his pleasure as well as my own.

  “I just want to savor you,” I said. “I like feeling every…” I lowered a little more. “Little…” More. “Bit of you.”

  “And I you, Ariana.” He cupped a hand around my left breast and leaned forward, taking my nipple between his lips, reminding me with a jolt to my sex that no matter how aroused I got, there was always room for more.

  When he pushed his pelvis upwards and buried himself deep, I rolled my hips against him, whimpering as I teased my clit against his flesh.

  “Come with me?” he asked, pulling those electric blue eyes up to my brown ones.

  I nodded. Tristan grabbed my hips and drew himself to his feet. Effortlessly, he stepped forward and threw me down onto the couch. I wanted to laugh, but I swallowed it in favor of a moan when he began to batter me with desperate thrusts.

  I grabbed his open shirt, peeling it off his shoulders to reveal more of his scarred body. Marks from a time long past that he’d never explained to me. Scars from a cruel weapon—that of a man bent on revenge.

  Something about being reminded of the pain he must have been in at one point in time only made me want him more. I wanted to make him feel good, to counteract all the suffering he’d ever endured. I reached between my legs and touched myself, my fingers kneading my clit as he drove inside me and pulled out, his impossibly thick cock stretching me again and again to perfect, sensuous depths of pain and pleasure.