He turned his face against her palm and placed a kiss on it.
She slipped back into the pool. “Swim with me.” Floating in the center, she observed a couple of cumulus clouds passing across the blue sky. She’d never bothered to look at them on Earth. She’d been too busy meeting deadlines, secreted away in her lab, going over calculations and arguing theories. She should be trying to figure out how to return home. Instead, she rode shifters bareback through the mountains, bathed in hot springs and fell out of trees.
If the portal opened again while at the Temple, she wouldn’t step through. This world with its vicious creatures held Sorin, and he in turn owned her heart. How could she ever live without him?
Waves rippled around her. Sorin swam close, circling. “You have an advantage over me.”
She wanted to laugh. She had nothing on him—he had all the power.
“You know of my world. Tell me about yours.”
Settling her feet onto the sandy bottom, she stopped drifting away from him. “I told you some things. Only humans exist there as far as I know. Our technology is much more advanced. What else?”
“How many lovers have you had?”
Her breakfast rolled over and played dead. “Not many.”
With a grave expression, he swam closer and inhaled. “You’re not lying but I find that hard to believe.”
She opened and closed her mouth trying not to sputter. He wasn’t joking. “I wouldn’t lie about that.” Men chased after women like Lailanie, not super-geeky her.
“Children?”
She shook her head then pinned him with a glare. “Are any of the pups in the den yours?”
“No.”
“Any pups anywhere?”
He grinned. “No. I haven’t taken a lover in years.”
“Why not?” Lailanie had hinted at this when they’d had their heart-to-heart. “I mean—a guy like you shouldn’t have trouble finding one.” She spoke softer.
Raking his hair from his face, he sighed. “It’s complicated.”
The cold water became frigid. “Try me.”
“I explained the other night how the alpha is the heart of the pack. My…father was the alpha. His feral side was more dominant than his civil. This doesn’t happen often, but when it appears we try to put the shifter down before someone gets hurt.” He cleared his throat and stared at the waterfall. “My father hid it well until he grew too strong for anyone to challenge him.”
A chill ran through her limbs. She reached for Sorin and pressed her body to his back. She recalled the night of the burial when he’d mentioned something about abuse.
“There are many terrible rumors about the Apisi—beatings, murder, rape. They were all true while my father was alpha.”
She hugged him tight, unable to imagine a childhood in that kind of environment. What could she say?
“Every time I made a connection with someone he destroyed it. He saw it as a weakness and wanted me to take his place. Eventually, I stopped reaching out. I had to wait.”
She sensed the blood leave her face. “For what?”
“To grow stronger and do what he wanted by becoming alpha.” He twisted in her arms to face her. Any playfulness had disappeared. “I killed him.”
Her fingertips touched her open mouth as she struggled with the what-the-fuck moment. Murdered his father? Granted, that happened on Earth too, but not to anyone she knew, let alone cared about. She understood pack law was very different from human but she couldn’t bury years of her beliefs in just a few days.
Sorin grasped her elbow and kept her from drifting away. “He was hurting them, Susan. I had to protect the pack.” He hung his head. “You don’t understand.”
She straightened her shoulders and gripped his biceps. What would happen to her if they had a disagreement? Would he put her down? “Explain it then.”
The pain in his eyes when their gazes met cut through her doubts. “It’s instinctual for me to protect. I think my father didn’t have this natural instinct as an alpha.” His stare glazed over. “I found Peder early one morning. He was barely thirteen winters old.” He swallowed. “The blood—what my father—I mean…”
“Sorin?”
“It made me so angry. My feral side took control. Alphas take care of the pack, not destroy it. I hunted him down within the den in my feral form, which is against our laws, and attacked.” He shuddered. “No one tried to stop me.”
The ache in her chest grew. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Sorrow choked her voice and made it hoarse.
“Don’t be. I don’t regret it. I showed him mercy and killed him quick. That’s more than he deserved.”
She leaned her head on his resilient shoulder.
“After that I couldn’t take any female in the pack. Even in his death, my father’s shadow followed me. Any poor judgment on my part reminded the pack of him. I couldn’t indulge, not without damaging our fragile bonds.” He caressed her cheek. “No one sees me. They see an alpha, the son of a tyrant, or a savior.”
Closing her eyes, she struggled not to shed tears. “You’ve been as alone as I have.”
“Not anymore.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The pups scattered out the door of the school room a few seconds after Kele dismissed them from studies. She loved teaching but her mind kept wandering back to a golden omega hiding in her den instead of focusing on the lessons.
No matter how busy she kept herself, she managed to end up at his door. Someone had offered her a tasty dessert last night, and she’d brought it to him. She’d found a book of maps and spent yesterday evening showing him how to understand them.
This morning her father threw out an old kilt. With a few adjustments, Peder would have something better to wear besides his tattered one. She collected her sewing basket—the kilt folded in the bottom—and found the doorway blocked by her female parent. “Mother.”
“Daughter.” She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “What’s in the basket?”
“Some sewing I mean to do.”
Faster than Kele could react, her mother snatched it from her grasp.
Kele tried to grab it but Chaska turned away, obstructing her reach. “Give it back.”
“I thought I saw you take this old kilt. What are you doing with it?” She held the clothing out of Kele’s reach.
“None of your business.” She shoved her mother. “Give it back.”
Chaska’s head knocked on the stone wall. The basket landed on the ground, the contents scattering.
Kele clasped her hands to her mouth. What had she done?
With a shake of her head, her mother leaned heavily against the wall.
“Mother, are you well?” She rushed to her side.
Growling, Chaska grabbed her by the collar and pulled her against her chest. Sharp canines snapped close to Kele’s face. “Mercy? What do I keep trying to teach you, pup?” She shook her until Kele’s eyes rolled with dizziness.
Tossed to the floor, Kele tried to regain her stance. She knew from experience if she didn’t rise to her feet, the kicking would commence. “Attack when my opponent is down.” Struggling with her balance, she stood and faced her mother.
“Exactly. Mercy won’t get you anything but a good bite.” Chaska rubbed the back of her head.
Kele held her burning tears in check. They would only bring on more ridicule. “But I don’t see you as an opponent. We’re supposed to care for each other. You’re my mother.” Her voice went hoarse.
A knot of repressed anger unraveled in her gut. Without another thought, Kele kicked out and side-swiped her mother’s legs from under her. All those years of being taunted and scorned, of shoving aside her emotions for her mother’s sake, ended today.
Chaska rolled toward the exit as soon as she landed on her back. With fluid grace, she rose. “Better.” She crouched low, her legs braced for an attack. “Now, with less passion and more thought.”
“Are you insane?”
Her mother
tackled her. The hard floor knocked the breath from her lungs, but Kele was too busy keeping Chaska from biting her to worry about breathing. How were they related? She kneed her mother in the flank, close to the kidney, just like she’d been taught.
A sharp yip rewarded her effort. Without hesitation, Kele punched her mother across the chin, then shoved her off in a combined motion. As she tried to crawl away, Chaska yanked her back to the floor by the hair.
Kele howled.
The first true feral thing she’d ever done.
Chaska released her hair then grabbed her shoulders so they could face each other. A huge smile was plastered to her face. “You came close to shifting!” She hugged Kele to her bosom.
Bones creaked in the embrace, but Kele leaned into it. She blinked at her mother. “I almost did.” She touched her face but it didn’t feel any different.
“You need to set your feral side free, Kele.” Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Kele’s heart raced. She wanted to sing and dance. She wanted to fight some more. She wanted to race to Peder’s room and tell him what happened.
“What is going on in here?” Her father stuck his head inside the school room, his eyebrows furrowed as he glanced from wife to daughter. “Do I need to call for the healer again?”
Benic followed Inali into the school room where he found Kele and Chaska twisted on the floor. A lump the size of an apple stood on Chaska’s head and Kele’s dress had been torn. “We’re late. Such a pity.” He sighed and met the she-beast’s furious glare.
His gaze traveled to the small glimpse of white flesh peeking through the tear of Kele’s dress. He ached to puncture her tender, young flesh with his teeth.
Chaska grasped the cloth and pulled it together. “Some of the pins from your sewing kit are in my back. Once you pull them free, we will fix this tear.” She assisted her daughter to her feet. “We’re well, Inali. Go feed the vampire. He looks hungry.”
Benic licked his fangs. One day…
The alpha smacked him on the shoulder. “Let’s leave the females to their sewing. I have business to discuss with you.”
“Over a bottle of wine, I hope.”
Inali gave him a wolfish grin. “Of course.”
They strolled through the courtyard of the den. The sun beat down upon their heads from the opening in the mountaintop. Beads of sweat trickled along Benic’s neck. The wine better be from the cooling well.
A leather ball bounced past them followed by a group of dirty, male pups. He shook his head. Shifters bred so easily.
Vampires grew up lonely. He’d never heard of, let alone seen, a group of vampire children playing. The idea was novel yet impossible. So far…
“What’s on your mind, Inali?” He followed the alpha into a shaded area with a set of chairs. The wine waited for them on the table. The alpha was nothing if not generous. Benic sighed as he sat then filled both their cups.
“My daughter.”
Benic slopped a little wine onto the table and grimaced.
“I’m worried about her future.” The alpha sipped his cup, leaning back in the chair.
A group of hunters, in feral form, stalked by on their way out of the den. Ahote wasn’t among them. Benic knew what occupied the hunter’s time—a pretty omega male, who the vampire would like nothing more than to serve to Chaska at dinner time. The whelp couldn’t stop eyeing Kele. The only thing keeping Benic from revealing this little secret was his need for Susan’s return, and Peder was the key.
Benic finished his wine. “That seems like a natural thing for a father to do.” And why did he need to speak with Benic about it?
“I’m not blind. She’s a beautiful female, and you’ve been showing my daughter some interest.”
Benic’s slow pulse paused. He stared at the alpha. They’d already started this discussion. Apparently, Inali needed to finish it.
“Do you wish to marry her? That is what vampires do, marry?”
Benic poured the rest of the wine in his cup, filling it to the brim. “I think this conversation is going to require more.” He swung the empty bottle between his fingers. His tolerance would require the whole cellar to get through the rest of this day.
Inali frowned. “I doubt that.”
Sighing, Benic sipped as he stared at the leaves above his head. “You know I can’t do that, Inali. The council would never approve a vampire-shifter marriage.”
“It would give us too much power.”
“They would kill her.” He faced Inali. “The less attention she draws to herself the better. You know this. Why are we really having this meeting?”
“The alpha of the Urutu pack has made an offer to mate her.”
It took all of Benic’s training to keep from groaning. “That’s nice. She can spend her life with a poor pack on the fringe of the tribe. May as well betroth her to Sorin of the Apisi.”
“It’s not as terrible as that. I can offer the finances the Urutu need to provide Kele with a comfortable life. The alpha is simple but kind. He would worship my daughter.”
“It seems like such a waste.” Benic drained his cup again then toyed with it. “I can only offer a position of consort in my court, Inali. But she’d have influence and my protection.”
“Until she grew old and you lost interest in her, but I did want to hear your counter offer before deciding.” He set his cup on the table and rose.
An empty pit grew where Benic’s heart had stopped. He leaned forward. “You should let her decide.”
“No, I fear she’d choose you out of desperation. She doesn’t know your people as well as I do though.” Inali left.
Wonderful. Benic took Inali’s still-full cup. First the Susan problem, then Peder, now this. How would he get what he wanted?
Chapter Thirty-Two
The rabbits Sorin caught were young. They had enough meat to make a meal for him and Susan.
He and Susan had made camp outside the Temple, their trip over the mountain uneventful. The pot over the fire and the blankets Susan carried were their only gear, the sky their roof and the ground their bed.
She lay on her back, staring at the bright stars through the forest canopy. “That the constellations are the same gives me a small measure of comfort. Technically I’m still home.”
Dropping their dinner by the fire, he stayed in feral form. Easier to protect her this way.
She turned her head toward him and her eyes went wide. She pointed to her mouth. “You have some blood on your—muzzle.”
The firelight tossed red highlights in her hair as she lay on her side, her dress clinging to her hips. He couldn’t wait to slip it off again. He licked his chops. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Her voice grew faint.
“Can you skin the rabbits while I clean up in the stream?” He tossed some wood on the fire. It wouldn’t take long to roast them. He would find some branches to make spits after washing.
“Okay.” She dangled the dagger he handed her between two fingers and stared at their meal as if they were children.
“Susan?”
“Don’t ask me to skin Thumper.” She blinked repeatedly, tears sparkling on her lashes.
Tilting his ears forward, he removed the dagger from her weak grasp. Why was she so upset? “I’ll do it. That’s fine.”
She wiped her eyes. “We don’t normally hunt for our food. We raise animals on farms, and I buy my meat already processed.” Fiddling with the hem of her dress, she kept her gaze averted.
“Where’s the fun in that?” He rubbed his face against her hair.
“It’s going to be hard getting used to living so differently.” She sniffed and held up a large lump in her hand. “I did find six potatoes where you told me to dig.”
He lifted her chin. “See, you’re learning already.” They would have their interesting issues but it could all work out. Now he knew not to ask her to skin animals. He chuckled and took the rabbits from her sight.
“I’ve never eaten ra
bbit before,” she called out.
Yes, she had. She just hadn’t known rabbit was in the stew she’d eaten a few nights ago. “You’ll love them. I wish I had more spices.” He made quick work of the pair and laid the pelts out to dry. They’d make nice moccasins for a pup.
He shifted to civil form and returned to the fire. “Place the potatoes close to the embers.” He spitted the Thumpers, as Susan called them, with sticks, then set them over the flames.
Color returned to her cheeks, and she set a smile on her face. “I want you to know how much I appreciate your patience.”
The kilt he found in the cave fit his waist and he settled on the blankets, then pulled her into his arms. “I wish I’d seen your world so I can understand what you need.” With a stick, he pushed a young potato closer to the heat.
She glared at him.
“Don’t give me that look. It will take longer to cook if the potatoes are too far from the heat.”
Laughing, she hugged him close. “I doubt you’d have liked my world. There’s very little wilderness where I lived, and the smells probably would have killed you.”
“A little stink wouldn’t defeat me.” Sorin snorted.
Susan couldn’t picture him being happy surrounded by exhaust from cars and the general pollution of the planet. If anything, he’d be miserable in a city. Not that they ever had to worry about such a scenario. DOUG was gone. No machine, no portal.
Or at least there shouldn’t be, but something was forcing those weak gates to flicker open. Maybe a residual effect from the blast? Maybe she’d torn an opening through the dimensional wall?
The warmth from her shifter and the light show from the flames made her eyelids grow heavy. “I doubt anything could defeat you.” She cringed a little inside. Did she really just say that? How besotted of her.
“There’s so much I don’t know about you.” He stroked her hair.
She’d purr if she could. “Hmm? Ask away.”
Twiddling with the ends of a strand, he remained quiet. The pregnant silence grew until he sighed. “How do humans mate?”
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