by Camryn Rhys
Mary sobbed and shrank into the chair.
Mary’s fear was palpable in the room. Aria leaned against Marco, but he stepped away from her, denying her his comfort. Tears welled in her eyes. He was blaming her for all of this.
“She was the only one that could remember her family from before we were taken. Villaneuva. But she knew she couldn’t curse her daughter with that name and he would find her if she’d tried to go home.”
“Who would find her?”
“Where are you from?”
“Where was Lupe from?”
Several of the alphas tossed questions over each other and the energy in the room shifted with power.
A look from the Cavanaugh alpha silenced everyone. “His name, Mary. We need his name.”
“Adrian. We never knew his last name—” Mary paused and looked straight past Aria to Marco. “I’m sorry, Marco. I tried to protect you from the burden of my shame.”
“Where are you from? Where were you kept?” Francis pushed gently. All of the men at the table leaned forward in anticipation.
“I don’t remember where I am from. Lupe always said that we were all stolen. That he took us from our families.”
“Do you remember anything else about the man in charge?” Carl spoke this time.
Mary shook her head. “I can’t.”
“We will protect you, Mary. You are safe.” Carl’s voice was so calming. Even though he wasn’t her alpha, Aria could feel him pressing calm toward everyone.
Tears poured down Mary’s cheeks and Marco took a step backward.
No. No. No. Aria reached for Marco’s hand again, but he recoiled.
“I don’t want to hear this. Just leave me out of all of it.” He whirled and took a step toward the door.
All eyes shifted to Marco and Aria couldn’t stop a whimper from slipping between her lips. The alphas magick slammed into hers like a hurricane wind, knocking her to her knees. Marco tensed and his shoulders went up.
Francis stood from his seat at the table. “You will stay, Marco DiSanti. You will respect your mother and the pain she’s shouldered alone all these years.” His voice echoed through the room, sending a terrifying shudder along Aria’s spine. She couldn’t imagine going against her alpha’s wishes, but Marco wasn’t bonded. He didn’t have the same connection to a pack that she did.
Marco stopped, his jaw tight. Aria cringed at the anger boiling in his features. His whole body was tight—calves, thighs, stomach, fists, chest. She wished she had the power to push calm into him, but they didn’t have that bond yet. Right now all she could feel was the physical manifestation of his discomfort.
Mary glanced at Aria and then past her to her son. “Please let my son leave. These are things he shouldn’t have to hear. I don’t want this burden on his shoulders, Mr. Dubois. Or on Elise’s.”
Francis’ expression softened. He glanced to several of the other alphas at the table before nodding to Mary.
“We will respect your mother’s wishes, Marco. Go with Aria.”
Chapter Ten
Marco’s whole body hummed. The energy was too much. And having been dismissed like he was someone’s child. He was fuckin’ done. No one was going to control him like this.
He shook off Aria’s hand and stalked out of the room, leaving the strangers to their bullshit meeting. He didn’t need to hear any more. His chest was going to explode and he wanted to punch something. Hard.
There had always been something wrong with the story his mother had fed him about his father. And to know the man was not only responsible for his mother’s torture, but other women—other wolves. Marco burst through the doors and kept walking, high-paced and angry.
Footsteps fell behind him and the hallway was nearly empty, save for a couple far down, coming toward them. Marco didn’t want to have it out with Aria in the hallway, but if she tried to feed him some line about pack bullshit, he was going to leave all this behind and go somewhere no one could find him.
“Marco!” Aria’s voice echoed through the hall. It was practically dawn, or it should be, but she didn’t seem to care if she woke people.
The couple down the hall didn’t seem fazed, either. In fact, they seemed to pick up their pace. Aria’s hand was on Marco’s shoulder before he could make it to them.
“I need some space, Aria.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You don’t know what I need.” He brushed her touch away. “Although you like to fucking think you do, with spells, and trying to get me to kowtow to packs and alphas. This is all fucking bullshit.”
“Aria?” A calm voice sounded from behind him. Marco turned, about to gather his wits and apologize, but the buzzing energy just wouldn’t stop, and his thoughts were whirling, and he really wanted to find a punching bag. Bad.
“Elise,” Aria answered. “Why are you up?”
“We got a call from Rain,” she was saying, but Marco couldn’t focus. This beautiful dark-haired, amber-eyed young woman was Elise. Her mother had been with his mother.
Marco held out a hand to stop her progress. “You shouldn’t go in there,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Elise, this is Marco.” Aria grabbed his hand and pulled him to her side. “Marco, this is Elise Blanchard, and her mate, Jared VonBrandt.”
The square-shouldered blond man held out a hand and Marco saw a peek of the green swirly tattoos that adorned his own wrists. Only Jared’s were doubled. Two endless knots together. Mated.
Marco shook the man’s hand.
“Why shouldn’t we go in there?” Elise glanced between Aria and Marco, but Marco held his tongue. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. He already wished he could split it out of his own skull. The image of his mother being raped and tortured in some gray room somewhere by a devil man who happened to be his father… that wasn’t going away. Ever.
“If Rain called you, then you should go in. They gave us permission to leave, but they called us in, too.” Aria gestured toward the conference room. “They found someone who knew your mother.”
The look of shock on Elise’s face made Marco pause. She grabbed Jared’s hand and their matching marks practically entwined. Her eyes watered.
“Can I go in?” Elise asked.
“You should both go in,” Aria said, putting a hand on Jared’s shoulder. “You’ll want to hear this, too.”
The couple walked on and Marco took that as his cue to leave. He didn’t want to hear his mother talk about Elise’s mother, or about his father, or any other man. He just wanted to go release some tension.
This had been a fucking hell of a day, and he was done.
Aria ran after him, yanking at his arm just as he pushed the elevator’s down button. “Marco, by the gods, will you stop?”
He couldn’t look at her. She was going to play on his sympathy, and his connection to her was too strong for him to resist. Maybe the connection would lessen as they got farther away from each other.
But did he want to be far away from Aria? Fuck. He didn’t know anymore.
“Look at me,” she said.
With a reluctant sidelong glance, he acquiesced. “I’m looking.”
“I can feel your tension. The unrest. Just trust me when I say, I need you to come with me.”
He sighed. Part of him just didn’t have the desire to fight it anymore, and wanted to open to her. But if he did… He just couldn’t afford it.
“I’m not going anywhere with this trust me bullshit.” He turned his body to fully face her. “Because you know what? I don’t fucking trust you. You’ve lied to me, forced me to do the one thing I swore I would never do, and then tricked me into this spell thing that I still don’t understand… All for what?”
His chest rose and fell in quick succession as he hovered over her. A crease of tension glanced across her forehead, and she shook her head.
“Well, forgive me if I’ve never met an unbonded wolf before! Fuck, really? You are like the only one in existence. Every other man I
have ever met would have bent over backward to bond with his mate when he found her, and you’re acting like I bamboozled you or something.” She held up her wrists. “It was inevitable, Marco. You don’t get that, but it was. Once Fate chooses, that’s it. My pack has learned the hard way—you don’t run away from your mate.”
The elevator dinged and Marco turned to find the doors opening in front of his face. He made awkward eye contact with a lone drunk guy who gazed at him with bleary eyes and made a mock salute.
“Going up?” the guy slurred.
Aria grabbed Marco’s hand. “Nope.”
Marco tried to shake her off, but she had such an iron grip on him, he couldn’t pry her off. The guy from the elevator gave a drunk snort and muttered something about how bad she wanted it and Marco’s mind went blank.
Was that what she wanted to show him? Was she going to lock him in the room and make him have sex with her? Fuck.
Marco’s nostril’s flared and he growled. “Aria.”
Something in his tone made her stop and turn. Her eyes were on fire, and he couldn’t tell if she was angry or turned on, but he needed to put a stop to this.
“I’m not going to have sex with you.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s the last thing on my mind right now.” She turned back to her room and grabbed him by the elbow. “Well, not the last thing. The last thing on my mind is the score of the Saints game. But I’m not trying to pin you down and fuck you, much as I think you need it.”
He couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at her. “I need you to tell me what is going on. I’ve had enough surprises for one night.”
Aria handed him the hotel key card and looked back and forth, up and down the hall. “You are afraid. I can feel it. I promise you, I’m not going to have sex with you unless you beg—and I mean beg—for it.”
A shiver ran through Marco’s entire body at the heat of her words. He turned the key card over in his hands and considered her.
“Okay, say I believe you.” He held the card out in front of him. The pressure back and forth from her toes to the floor told him that her impatience was going to win out. Either he was going to go with her, or he wasn’t.
Did he trust her? No. But if nothing else, he needed her.
Fuck. He never needed anyone. He did not need Aria.
The hotel key made a clicking noise when it hit home in the lock. Marco held the door open for Aria and she snorted as she walked past him.
“Don’t act so high and mighty, mister. You took me up to your hotel room already. I’m just returning the favor.” He dropped the key in his pocket and Aria rounded on him as soon as the door closed.
She slid her arms around him and he heard her slip the deadbolt into place. Her lips were only inches from his and she stood there, breathing and staring into his eyes.
“I thought this wasn’t about sex.” He laughed and was tempted to brush his lips across hers, but he waited for her move.
“It’s not.” She pulled off her shirt and walked toward the center of the room.
“Okay, it’s starting to feel like this is about sex.”
Aria just kept walking. She dropped the shirt, peeled off her boots, and then her pants, until she stood on the other side of the large room, pink and naked and beautiful.
“I’m not seeing the not-about-sex part.” Even as he said the words, he could feel his blood starting to heat. His arms, his extremities, his chest, his heart… He was going to burst into flames.
Aria put her hands on her hips. “I need to show you that shifting isn’t something to be afraid of.” Her voice was low and sweet, almost melodic. This wasn’t the same Aria who had climbed on top of him in the car and couldn’t wait to get naked.
Only it was. And she was fucking beautiful.
“Shifting?” He couldn’t stop staring at the hard-as-granite points of her breasts. “You mean, becoming a wolf?” His heartbeat galloped to a breakneck speed.
Before he could turn around, Aria melted into a sleek, silver wolf. The air crackled with magic and the great beast padded up onto the bed and laid down on it for a moment. Her eyes stayed on him, almost like a predator, and Marco couldn’t move. A taut hand felt like it was closing around his throat as he felt his wolf pushing at his skin, but Marco held his ground.
In another flash, the creamy skin of the woman reappeared, stark against the dark green of the hotel bedspread. She turned over and slipped across the bed. When she was standing beside it, she fell to all fours and became the wolf again.
Marco found that he’d stopped breathing, until the wet lick of the wolf’s tongue caressed his fingers and the beast’s head nudged its way under his hand. He still couldn’t move, but the pressure of Aria’s wolf against his leg was somehow comforting and calming, in a way he’d never known it could be.
Before he could speak, she changed back into herself and stood in front of him, her eyes again on fire. She slipped her hand to his cheek and he flinched.
“See?” she whispered. “Shifting is nothing to be afraid of. We can do it at a moment’s notice if we need to.” She met his eyes and held them, a deep heat cascading between them.
“When you told me that you were afraid to shift…” Her eyebrows knit together. “You need to know that your wolf is nothing to be afraid of.”
Marco closed his eyes and shook his head. “You don’t understand. I can’t… I’ve never…” He licked his lips. “When I was having sex with my high school girlfriend, I almost shifted for the first time. But I’ve never shifted, other than during the moon, since that day.”
Aria released a long breath and concern laced her features. “Never?”
“Not in the twelve years since then. Not ever.”
She took both of his hands and a red-hot hellfire of a danger zone opened up inside him. He knew what she was going to say, or he knew what he wanted her to say. He wasn’t sure anymore. But even the part of him that wanted to embrace his wolf and be free of the years of shame he’d carried around, being at the mercy of a beast, wasn’t going to be able to do this alone.
“Here’s what I want you to do, Marco.” She stepped into his space and pulled off his t-shirt. “You’re going to think about letting your wolf loose, and then I’m going to shift with you. And whenever you want to, you think about being this you again, and I will wait for you to shift back.”
Her hands were on his pants and a slice of fear cut him almost in two. He stopped her unbuttoning. “What if I can’t? What if I can’t shift back?”
“You can,” she whispered. “I promise. This is how we teach young wolves. Your wolf will feel safer with me around, and then when you feel like it, you try to shift back, and you keep trying until you can do it.”
He let go of her hands and she kept working on his pants. Before he knew it, she had them off, and his boxers, and he was naked in front of her.
This was his chance. At least, if something went wrong, Aria could defend herself, and he wasn’t going to get loose and kill people.
Marco nodded. “Okay. I’m going to put my life in your hands, Aria LeBlanc.”
Her icy eyes calmed his racing heartbeat. “I promise. You can do this.”
Without any more hesitation, Marco closed his eyes and thought of the wolf.
Chapter Eleven
When he was human again, Marco looked around the room for Aria, every part of his body humming with electricity. He expected to see torn sheets and damaged property and a wolf’s body in shreds. Instead, he saw the silver streak of Aria’s wolf and then the white of her skin.
He was on his hands and knees, in the same place he’d been before he shifted, with his clothes around him, and he was panting. His whole body felt relaxed, like he’d just had the monster orgasm he often dreamt about. The one he’d never had.
“Aria?” he called out.
“I’m here.” Her hand slipped up his arm and she crawled along the floor to sit in front of him. “See? I told you, you could do it.”
&n
bsp; Marco shook himself and sat back on his haunches. “I don’t remember much. I never… I never remember any of it.”
Aria’s features softened and a sad smile spread over her lips. “It’s different for every wolf.”
“How long were we…?” He couldn’t make the words come.
“Not long. Maybe two minutes.” She slipped closer and the warmth of her body soothed him. “You didn’t move from this spot. You just stood there, and I could feel your heart beating, but you didn’t move.”
He forced air in and out of his lungs. To have been a wolf for such a short time, and to have willed himself back to human… He hadn’t known that was possible.
“Every time I’ve shifted before, it’s been with the moon. I didn’t even know I could…control it.” Emotion pressed at his chest, almost like heartburn after a good meal.
“That’s why I needed to show you.” Aria rose to her knees and crawled around his body, putting one knee on either side of his legs. “It seems like you don’t even want to be a wolf.”
“I don’t.” He tried to keep the emotion from his voice, but he couldn’t. He could feel the cracking beginning. “God, Aria, I don’t. I never have.”
Her body was so close to his. The softness of her thighs against his knees. He could smell her arousal, and the blood rushed to his cock. Suddenly, her hand was in his lap, touching him, coaxing him. She leaned toward him, her eyes molten.
“You will.” Her lips pressed against his, and Marco met her kiss with such force, he thought he was going to knock her over. His hands went to the sides of her face and he held her still, devouring her like he had devoured her pussy.
Aria met his passion with a force of her own, her tongue finding his and sliding along it in a strident purpose. Her hand was still on his cock, and he would soon be hard enough to drive nails.
He wanted to fuck her. Needed it.
Marco waited for the hesitation that he’d felt earlier that night, and it was still there, hovering in the back of his mind, but it didn’t overtake him. He kissed down the side of her neck, the normal path his lips would always take.
