The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection

by Dorothy McFalls

  She appeared ready to take on the entire legion of villains. Two of the gang’s men backed up, circling with the measured step of a hound approaching an angry badger. Lettie swung her cane again. It missed its mark and clanged on a stone paver.

  Not willing to give up so easily, Lettie let out a most unladylike curse and turned her ire on the man holding Lia. She raised her cane high in the air. “Release my niece, or I shall bash your pudgy head into your pudgy neck.”

  The man wasn’t as pudgy as he was thick. Muscular. Handsome, but unlike Carew’s disarming good looks, this man’s striking appearance did nothing to assuage Lia’s fear of him. His arms, massive cords of muscles, squeezed Lia’s ribs so tightly they felt as if they might snap. But she didn’t see a need to point this out to Lettie. Her aunt wouldn’t stop until they were both safe…or both dead.

  Since lending her aunt a helping hand appeared to be their only hope, Lia struggled against her captor while furiously trying to come up with a better plan of escape. She twisted and kicked at his legs, but the man’s grip only tightened.

  “Yes.” His quickening breath brushed her ear. A hard bulge in his pants pressed against her backside. “Fight us.”

  His excitement only made her more frantic to get away from him.

  “Lord Carew!” she called. Where had that blackguard gone? Hadn’t he seen the men come through the garden gates? Surely he hadn’t fled into the dark leaving Lia and her aunt to face this horrible fate alone. She couldn’t imagine him playing the part of a coward. Not the self-assured always-in-command Lord Carew. So where was he?

  “I have no money, you bounder,” Aunt Lettie shouted as more men charged her like wild dogs. “Get away from me.” She swung her cane wildly.

  A thin woman with stringy brown hair grabbed hold of Lettie’s gown from behind, ripping it as she pushed Lettie into a prickly rose bush. The purple turban went flying.

  Lia screamed. She could do nothing to help her aunt. The gang, dressed in rags, looked hungry, desperate. The thin woman pounced on Lettie and punched her in the side of her head.

  “Stop that! Leave her alone!” Lia cried. The woman pushed Lettie’s face in the depths of the thorny bush over and over until Lettie stopped fighting back. No matter how fiercely Lia struggled to break free, she was helpless. Powerless to help her beloved aunt.

  “If you agree to come quietly with us, we will stop tormenting the old woman,” her captor said, his ever-tightening grip squeezing every bit of air from her chest. She was on the verge of fainting when he twisted her around until she stared into his strange yellow eyes. “You are mine.” He growled, a deep guttural sound only an animal would make. It must have been the fog, but his face appeared to change. His teeth grew longer, more menacing. His features elongated, transforming him into a dog with a snout…or perhaps a wolf. But…but there were no wolves in England. “The old woman is useless to us. Kill her.”

  “No!” Lia twisted sharply away from the monster, finally breaking free of his hold. The gaunt woman crouched over Aunt Lettie like a hound would stand over a fox moments before it went in for the kill.

  “No!” Lia pulled at the woman’s arms. But the woman was much stronger than her haggard body looked. Lia couldn’t get her to budge. Much to her horror, the woman opened her mouth, revealing a line of extra-large, razor-sharp teeth. She lurched forward, going for Aunt Lettie’s exposed neck.

  Lia, on her knees now, beat at the woman’s shoulders and face. “Leave her alone! Leave her alone!” she sobbed.

  “Enough.” The sharp command came from a refined English voice Lia instantly recognized.

  The crazed woman halted mid-lunge. So did Lia.

  “Lord Carew,” Lia whispered. His warm, gentle hands lifted her from the ground and set her back on her feet. “You came back for us. Thank goodness. Thank goodness.”

  She pressed herself against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. They weren’t safe from danger yet. Carew was just one man. What match was he against six hellishly strong beasts?

  The lead monster growled.

  Lord Carew, apparently not the least bit frightened of these half-man, half-beastly creatures, stood strong and tall against them. “Stand down, Vlad.”

  Lia held her breath, expecting to be attacked, or killed, or worse.

  Her heart thundered in her chest as she waited.

  And waited.

  Remarkably, the monsters remained where they stood. “My aunt’s house is not a block away. I would be ever so grateful if you would see us home. Lettie is hurt. She needs to be looked after. Perhaps you can carry her?” Lia blathered thoughtlessly. “I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t…”

  There was no reason for the monsters to have obeyed Carew. He wasn’t that charming. And no matter how strong or clever, he certainly wouldn’t be a match for all of them at once. “I’m not sure how you…”

  She suddenly noticed most of the beasts had gathered behind Lord Carew.

  “Lord Carew?” She looked up at him.

  “Vlad, you can’t hunt in the gardens of Mayfair like this.” His voice was still as hard as the stones in the garden wall. Dangerous. “It will cause a panic and draw too much attention. Possibly bring the hunters.”

  “Lord Carew?” she asked.

  He didn’t look at her. The truth of their situation was beginning to dawn on her. He wasn’t their savior. He wasn’t rushing to their rescue. “You’re not going to help us.”

  “No.” He pressed his gloved hand over her mouth before she could scream again. “The carriage is at the gate. We’ll take them both to my residence.”

  Chapter Three

  It hadn’t been a tidy abduction. Under better circumstances Dimitri would have done things differently, much differently. He certainly wouldn’t have allowed Vlad to man-handle her like he had. But Dimitri had wanted to see Lady Amelia fight, or rather see if she would fight.

  He’d also hoped the shock and stress of being taken so forcefully would cause her to shift.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t.

  He stalked through the kitchens belowstairs, staying away from the pack gathered in his parlor and even further away from the weeping Lady Amelia.

  He knew he shouldn’t care what happened to her. She wasn’t his concern. Not really. He’d done his duty to his family and his pack. He’d tracked her down and had made it possible for the young beauty to be returned to her own kind. He’d even personally attended to Lady Amelia’s aunt, treating her wounds and making sure the older woman slept peacefully. As for the rest…

  A lone wolf didn’t form bonds, didn’t care about the welfare of others.

  But it was difficult, impossible really, to put the whole damned thing behind him when the pack had made themselves at home in his upstairs parlor, Lady Amelia’s aunt safely and comfortably tucked away in a small room in the attic, and the lady of such intense interest locked in his own bedchamber.

  Why in blazes had he kissed her?

  He had known better. For months, he’d been so careful to keep his distance. She wasn’t his, would never be his. It had been simple curiosity that had moved him to ask her to waltz with him. And what had happened in the garden?

  By taking her in his arms, he’d only tortured himself. He’d never again taste nectar so sweet, but because she wasn’t his to take, he had left things between them unfinished, painfully so. A low growl emerged from his throat as he gnashed his teeth. He was never going to rid himself of her exquisite flavor.

  He should slink away into the night, begin again in another city, another country even. The Americas were half a world away. That might be far enough.

  Damn it, the moon wouldn’t be far enough for him to forget the feel of holding Lady Amelia in his arms and to want more. Damn her. Damn her. Damn her.

  Who was he kidding? This wasn’t her fault. The foolish girl believed herself human. He’d seen the horror, the stinging terror frozen on her face when Vlad had started to shift back to their natur
al wolf form in the duke’s garden. She would never accept any of them…especially not Dimitri.

  They were monsters to her, creatures from her worst nightmare. And yet, to them, she was their salvation. What would they do to her when they discovered she’d become more human than wolf? How would they react when they learned she didn’t know how to shift forms and might never know how? Would they welcome her as their leader’s mate when they could clearly smell her weakness and fear clinging to her like a bitter perfume?

  Hell, the pack wouldn’t accept her. It was their nature to cull the weak in favor of the strong. She might last a fortnight, if she was lucky. And then the pack’s instincts would kick in causing Vlad and the pack to put an end to her existence.

  Curse it! Dimitri turned abruptly around. He’d regret this. He knew he would, damn it. But what other choice did he have? The cursed woman was already in his system, throbbing in his veins like a bloody fever. He should have taken her in the garden on the ground and been done with her. He shouldn’t have been so gentle. He shouldn’t have pretended to be a gentleman. He wasn’t.

  Hell, he wasn’t even human.

  She would have been just another bloody rut with another bloody animal.

  But now, with every beat of his heart, he wanted her. And yet, he couldn’t have her. She belonged to the pack, not him. He hadn’t been part of the pack since Ivan’s death and Vladimir assumed the alpha role. That had been more than seven years ago. Although, to be honest, Dimitri had never really fit in with the others. Ivan had tolerated Dimitri’s lone wolf tendencies. Vlad, on the other hand, saw them as a threat.

  It had been either leave or die. So Dimitri had fled. He’d thought he’d never see any of them again. He’d built a new life, a good life. He’d been content. Well, as content as a wolf could be living in the middle of a bustling city.

  Then a little more than a year ago, his sister, Misha, wrote a frantic letter to him about the hunters.

  It wasn’t news he hadn’t heard before. The hunters—humans who hated their kind—sought to cleanse the wolves from the earth. It was an old battle. The hunters targeted the alphas, the heart of the pack. In the recent past, the men had killed Sasha and Lev, the strongest alpha pair in the pack’s memory. After that, it had taken nearly a decade for the pack to regain a small measure of its past strength. In the interim, the hunters had shot Dimitri’s parents as the pair of wolves hunted small game in the forest. And then more recently, the hunters killed Ivan, strung him up from a tree, and skinned him alive.

  Losing Ivan had nearly torn the pack apart. But despite the hunters’ successes, the pack—those who survived the assaults—always regrouped. It always survived.

  This time, however, things had changed. The hunters had recently shifted tactics. Instead of targeting the alpha, the strongest, they now hunted the young, the old, the weak, picking off the pack one-by-one until only a dozen of the strongest, the wiliest, of them were left alive. And worse, the nearby villagers had begun to convert the forest—the only home the wolves had ever known—to farmland. Their home, their sole source of food, was slowly being eroded away. If something didn’t happen to change this, soon the pack would become a distant memory, a shadowy fable parents told to scare young children.

  His sister’s letter detailing the deaths and carnage had been graphic. Her jagged handwriting betrayed her growing alarm.

  Dimitri had replied, begging Misha to save herself and join him in England. She’d refused. The girl had always been stubborn to a fault, a family trait.

  The letter that followed, the one he carried in his breast pocket, had moved him to action. Misha, like all the women in his family, possessed the gift of what his kind called the Kiss of the Moon. She had visions of the future. Not often, but when a vision happened, the pack’s ears perked up, even a lone wolf’s like Dimitri’s.

  He loped up the back stairs to the first floor. His silent stride carried him to the parlor where the pack was holding a council of war. With arms crossed, he stood in the shadows of the doorway, listening. He’d hoped to slip into the room without anyone noticing, but Misha turned toward him almost immediately, her dark eyes wary.

  Her face used to be wreathed with laughter. The years of being chased by the hunters had changed her. He feared for her. He feared for all of them, though this wasn’t his battle. Vlad had made that much clear when they’d arrived in London a month ago.

  The pack had clearly suffered. Except for Vlad, they were all appallingly thin. And even Vlad looked more than a little haggard. The hunters must have resorted to starving them out of their hiding places. As long as they were under his roof—Carew’s roof—they would have access to all the food they’d need.

  Vlad gladly took Dimitri’s food, his hospitality, and expected Dimitri to dutifully obey his orders or else there would be bloodshed. Dimitri’s blood. But once this was over, it was over. The pack would be gone, and this time Dimitri doubted he’d ever see any of them again. Which was probably a blessing. They’d all changed. The emptiness he saw in their eyes frightened him. Hell, what more proof did he need after what had happened in the garden? His sister, his own baby sister, had been ready to kill Lady Amelia’s aunt for no better reason than the older woman had been a human and in their way. The path the pack was taking could only lead to more deaths and, ultimately, extinction.

  “You could stay here,” he mouthed to Misha. “Live here.”

  She shook her head and turned away. It was an old battle between them. She refused to leave the pack, and he couldn’t stay.

  Vlad was on the other side of the parlor by the fireplace, pacing. Two of his dogs had joined him up there. Dimitri didn’t recognize them. They had probably been pups when he’d left. They looked young, hungry, and vicious, not the kind of wolf one would want to meet on a dark, overcast night like tonight. The two were arguing over which one would kill Lady Amelia’s adopted parents. They were discussing the murders as if the humans in question were scraps of meat to be devoured. Dimitri supposed he was just as culpable as they were in that part of the plan. He’d already sent a messenger with letter guaranteed to lure Lady Amelia’s parents to this residence, to this trap.

  The others in the room rabidly argued over Lady Amelia’s future and her place in the pack. Vlad must not have told them his plans to keep the young lady for himself, which was interesting. Was Vlad’s hold on the pack weakening?

  The pack had reverted to their native Russian despite Dimitri’s warning to speak only the English language. No reason to risk leading hunters to his doorstep. Servant gossip spread like wildfire through Mayfair. The ton already knew all about his ragtag household guests. He’d explained them away as a charity case, but their presence in his house was still a danger. Add to that the two hostages tucked away upstairs and, hell, he might as well toss a bloody powder horn into the fire grate.

  He sighed. Other than the pack, he knew of no others like himself. And although he had no place within their ranks, he didn’t belong to the human world either. No matter how adept he’d become in conforming to the human’s ways, he was still a wolf.

  These wolves were his family, his kin. He’d chew off his arm before turning his back completely on them, which put him in one hell of a predicament. Despite Misha’s vision, he’d seen enough of the world to know that Lady Amelia lacked the means to deliver them into a better life.

  By now, several of the wolves had noticed Dimitri standing in the doorway. Their gazes, glowing yellow in the dim light of the room, were fixed on him…on his throat. Their hunger, their jealousy of his new life, rolled off them like heat from a roaring fire.

  He’d been a fool to worry about Lady Amelia’s safety when his own position was so damnably precarious. They might not welcome a lone wolf to the pack, but they sure as hell wanted his money and his possessions. As soon as they figured out they no longer needed Dimitri or his expertise on London Society, those greedy wolves would likely rip out his throat and take everything he owned.

 
; Luckily, they needed Dimitri and his connections for a little while longer. And after that… Well, Dimitri had survived—thrived—as a lone wolf for a reason. He was clever and knew more of this cruel world than any man or wolf should ever hope to know. No one had managed to kill him yet though countless foes had tried. And if he could keep his wits about him and not let some tempting she-wolf get under his skin, he should be able to keep a few steps ahead of his pack.

  “Misha,” Vlad spoke, bringing everyone’s attention back to where he was holding court by the fireplace. “Remind us again the details of the vision.”

  Misha slowly rose from the settee and crossed the room to stand beside Vlad. Color flooded her cheeks as she glanced up at her alpha. Vlad didn’t seem to notice, but Dimitri hadn’t missed it. Misha wrinkled her nose and glanced quickly away.

  Ah, no wonder she continued to refuse Dimitri’s offers to leave the pack and live with him. She was in love with Vlad. Clearly, it was an affection that went only one way.

  “The pack will suffer. Many will die. All will seem lost,” she closed her eyes and recited. Having memorized what she’d written in the letter, Dimitri knew the words by heart. “But there is one who can save us. Possess Sasha and Lev’s spawn, the seed of their love. She lives. Find her. Possess her.” She opened her eyes and focused directly on Dimitri as she spoke the rest. “The one who has left must be returned. That is the path the pack must take. It is the only way.”

  “What is there left to do?” a younger female wolf with striking blonde hair asked. “We now possess her. No human can harm us. Is that not correct?”

  “Let us go out and hunt. I’m in the mood to celebrate,” a large male suggested.

  “Yes, I have a craving for some human blood,” another said.

  Vlad’s voice turned sharp and impatient as the room erupted into excited discussions. The heated energy in the room crackled in the air. Vlad would have his hands full for quite a while as he worked to calm the restless pack. Some in the group had already begun to shed their human forms in anticipation of going on a hunt.