by Jane Godman
A few minutes later their food arrived and Cindy cut up the steaks for Sebastian to eat.
“I don’t remember being this helpless, not even when I was a cub.”
“The doctor said your recovery would be slow. It was a severe injury.”
“I remember now. I thought I was going to die.” Sebastian’s gaze was warm on her face. “You saved me.”
She laughed. “It was an unconventional way of doing it. Fenrir thought he was going to bite my head off and then rip your throat out. The next minute, he found himself choking on a silver locket. Such an indignity for a mighty werewolf god.”
There was a knock on the door. It was Samson. A huge grin spread over his features when he saw Sebastian was awake. He looked like he was considering hugging his friend, but he decided against it.
“You have no idea how worried we’ve been.”
“Is the whole brotherhood still here in New York?” Sebastian asked.
“Of course. No one was leaving until we knew you were okay.”
“Including Valetta?”
“No.” Samson shook his head. “She had to go home. Something came up in work that she had to deal with.”
“Then we need to leave here today.” Despite his weak appearance, Sebastian sounded determined. “We have to go back to Fairbanks.”
“Hey.” Samson held up a calming hand. “Chastel is dead. You should know. You killed him.”
“The prophecy states he can only be killed by you,” Sebastian said. “Even out there on that ice rink, I knew I couldn’t kill him. The best I could do by ripping out his throat was to slow the bastard down.”
“We talked about that while you were unconscious. What if the prophecy is not about me? It’s based on cave drawings on the island of Ulu, right? The drawings show that the wolf killer will be destroyed by a giant from the land of ice and snow. We always assumed that because I am the biggest member of the brotherhood, the Arctic werewolf in the drawings is me. But what if giant doesn’t mean physical build? What if it means giant in courage? What you did, the way you came to New York alone and walked first into Fenk’s place, then into Chadwick’s. The way you took on Fenrir . . . all of those things have to make you those most courageous of us. I think the giant werewolf in those cave paintings was you.”
“And the figure protecting the giant wolf? That was the Shadow Wolf. It was Valetta,” Sebastian said.
“Again, that’s what we thought. We thought I needed Valetta to protect me when I fought Chastel. But Cindy saved you. What if she is the shadowy figure in the cave drawings, not Valetta?”
The thought made Cindy shiver. Could it be true? Had an ancient prophecy predicted that she would save Sebastian from death on that ice rink? It was clear from his expression that Sebastian remained unconvinced.
“There is a world of ancient legend surrounding the Shadow Wolf. The shaman from Ulu sent her own wolf familiar to protect the giant werewolf who would kill Chastel. She didn’t get this wrong. Valetta is that wolf familiar. You are the giant werewolf,” Sebastian insisted. “But we can settle this easily. If Chastel is dead, where is his body?”
Chapter Fourteen
Wilder had chartered a private plane to take them back to Fairbanks. Dr. Vane had confirmed that Sebastian was well enough to fly. Sebastian had reacted with horror to Vigo’s suggestion that he should use a wheelchair.
“Police say their inquiries lead them to suspect that the incident was a hoax.” Samson had
his laptop open and was watching the latest news update about what had happened at the ice rink. “None of the perpetrators have yet been apprehended, and detectives are asking anyone with information to contact them on the number shown below.”
“No mention of a body. I think they would mention it if a man had died. I think they would definitely mention that he had died in horrible circumstances,” Sebastian said. “It would have become a more newsworthy story.”
Samson slumped back in his seat, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You win. Chastel didn’t die. But he’s sure as hell got to be hurting after what you did to him.”
“Hurting or not, he’s still Fenrir’s conduit into this world.” As Sebastian said the words, he could see from the expressions on his companions’ faces that this aspect hadn’t occurred to anyone else. “Fenrir isn’t going to let that go without a fight.”
“Fuck.” Vigo ran a hand through his hair. “He’s going to be pissed.”
“They both are.” An enraged Fenrir and an injured Chastel would be more dangerous, but they may also be more likely to make mistakes. The only problem was that the brotherhood was once again reduced to six members. Sebastian wasn’t even as much use to the team as a wolf pup. He really did feel as weak a kitten.
They were nearing Fairbanks when another thought occurred to him. “Has Valetta seen anything of Hendrik?”
“She hasn’t been staying in the house with him,” Samson said. “Why?”
“Because he’s controlled by Chastel. If Chastel was dead, how would Hendrik know what to do?” Sebastian asked. “I could be wrong, but, if Hendrik is behaving normally, it seems like further proof that Chastel is alive.”
“Do we have to stay in Hendrik’s house?” Cindy shivered as she asked the question. “I really don’t want to see that phony living in my best friend’s home.”
Sebastian took her hand. “It’s the only way to stay in touch with Chastel. If you, me, Samson, and Valetta are there, we may just get an insight into what his plans are.”
“Or he may get an insight into ours.” She looked miserable. Sebastian hoped he wasn’t pushing her too hard. Making the change from human to werewolf had to be hard enough. Cindy had joined the brotherhood as well and coped with everything else that was going on. She had proved to be brave and strong, more than qualified to be a member of the brotherhood, but she looked exhausted.
“Stick with me. I know what I’m doing.” He kissed her cheek.
“You need to rest.”
“I will . . . once that bastard is really dead.” He turned back to address the others. “Don’t forget. Chastel can disguise himself as anyone. Don’t let him fool you.”
“You mean he could be flying this plane?” Madden saw Cindy’s look of alarm and grimaced. “It was a joke. A really bad one.”
Cindy remained quiet as the plane landed. Valetta had come to meet Samson and she brought her car onto the tarmac. Vigo helped Sebastian down the steps and into the vehicle. Once he was seated in the back, he turned to Cindy.
“What is it?”
She attempted a smile, but her lip wobbled. “I have a really bad feeling about going back to Hendrik’s house.”
“That’s not surprising given everything that’s happened there lately.”
She nodded. “I guess so.” He could tell she wasn’t reassured.
Madden, Lowell, and Vigo joined Wilder in his car. They were going to Lowell’s house, but the team arranged to all meet up the following day.
The mood was somber as Valetta drove them to her father’s house. Sebastian didn’t know what they would find when they got there, and he guessed the others felt the same. The Hendrik impersonator had been alone during their absence. How would he react to their return?
The answer was waiting for them as Valetta pulled in through the electronic gates. Hendrik was standing on the steps with an ax in his hands.
* * *
“I can’t do this.” As she brought the car to a standstill in from of the house, Valetta’s voice was anguished. “Even though I know that’s not my father, he still looks like him.”
Samson turned his body around to look at Cindy. “I guess that leaves you and me?”
She nodded her confirmation. Although part of her felt the same way as Valetta—how dare Chastel make her fight a man who looked like her old friend?—she knew she had no choice. That wasn’t Hendrik. She had to keep telling herself that.
There was no time to remove their clothes. Cindy and Sa
mson shifted as they emerged from the car shedding their clothing at the same time. Cindy shrugged aside the remnants of sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers that clung to her as she charged after Samson toward the figure on the step.
Hendrik looked momentarily panic-stricken before he raised the ax above his head. It was the final confirmation that he was a fake. The real Hendrik was a werewolf. He would have shifted in preparation for the fight. Before he could bring the blade down on Samson’s skull, the two werewolves powered into him, knocking him off his feet.
Samson’s razor-sharp claws ripped deep gouges into Hendrik’s back as his jaws clamped on to the man’s exposed neck. Hendrik screamed, trying to shake the werewolf off, but it was impossible. Cindy didn’t have to do anything. As she watched, she could feel Samson’s fury. It was coming off him in white-hot waves as he threw Hendrik around, shaking him like a dog with a chew toy. Blood flew in spray before he finally released Hendrik’s dead body, dropping it to the ground.
Cindy shifted back. Ignoring her nakedness, and the cold stone and the blood beneath her knees, she knelt beside the body. “Look.”
Hendrik was changing. The handsome Nordic features were softening. His white-blond hair was darkening. His big, muscular frame was shrinking. Within minutes, the body lying on the step in front of them was that of a young dark-haired man with sharp features.
“Just as we thought.” Sebastian, helped from the car by Valetta, had come up behind them. “Chastel chose someone at random and cast a spell on him to make him look like Hendrik.”
“He was waiting to kill us.” Cindy looked up at him. “If he was under Chastel’s spell, that must mean you were right. Chastel is still alive.”
Her words seemed to cast a chill over them all. It was as if the afternoon shadows lengthened and the winter sun struggled to shine.
“Let’s go inside.” Sebastian shook his head when Samson offered his arm. “You get rid of the body. The last thing we need now is someone to stop by and find this on the doorstep.”
Cindy managed a laugh. “Thankfully, it’s not the gardener’s day.”
Once they got inside, Valetta made coffee while Cindy went to her room. She quickly showered and changed. She knew from past experience that the brotherhood were experts in disposing of dead bodies. When Samson returned, he had barely broken a sweat. The body was gone and the front step was clean.
“Where did you put him?” Valetta handed Samson a towel to wrap around his waist.
“The lake.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the forest beyond the extensive backyard. “I don’t like the idea of doing that to an innocent dupe, but we have no idea who this guy was.”
“There’s a good chance he was homeless and Chastel picked him up off the street,” Sebastian said. “I monitor the news constantly for my job. I haven’t seen anything about a missing person fitting his description.”
There was silence as they spared a moment to dwell on the horror that was Chastel. The bounty hunter had done this so many times. He used innocent victims for his own evil purposes, abandoning them when they were no longer needed. Whoever the guy was that had ended up at the bottom of the lake, he had committed no crime. It had just been his misfortune to cross paths with a werewolf hunter called Chastel.
“What do we do now?” Cindy wrapped her hands around her coffee cup. No matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to get warm.
“We do what we’ve always done.” Sebastian placed a hand on her shoulder. The movement comforted her. He was regaining his strength. “We wait for Chastel’s next move.”
“Will he go away and hide until he’s healed?”
“He may.” Sebastian turned his gaze to the darkening scene outside the window. “Or he may decide to make a move now while he thinks we are weakened. He knows I’m injured and he knows you are new to the team. And he could have no choice.”
“What do you mean?” She shivered slightly at the look on his face.
“He may no longer be in control of his own mind.”
* * *
Cindy tasted like heaven. Like rose and vanilla. Sugar and honey. She was addictive. Sebastian had known that the first time he kissed her. Each time after that was just further confirmation that he couldn’t get enough of her. He wanted his tongue inside her mouth forever.
Her lips suckled his tongue as she arched in his arms, her delicious breasts pressing against his chest as she lay next to him on the bed.
“Too soon.” It was a reluctant sigh as she pulled away. “You’re still healing.”
“It’s been two fucking weeks. I’m going crazy with wanting to get inside you.”
Her smile was filled with mischief. “As long as you take it easy.”
“Cindy”—he was already throwing their clothes onto the floor—“I’m not taking anything easy. Be prepared for this to be hard.” He took her hand and wrapped her slender fingers as far as they would go around his straining erection. “Very hard.”
Cindy lowered her head, and swiped her tongue over his crest, sliding it into the sensitive slit. Sebastian’s whole body jerked with a combination of shock and ball-tightening pleasure. Looking up at him with a smile in her eyes, Cindy slowly opened her mouth and took the straining, engorged head of his cock into her sweet, wet warmth.
“Ah, fuck!” His stomach muscles clenched hard.
Her fingers were still curled around his erection and she stroked as she sucked him deep, watching his face as she caressed his sensitive flesh with her tongue.
Sebastian gazed into her eyes as his body tightened with endless pleasure. The growl that rumbled low in his chest was pure animal. His inner wolf was enjoying this as much as his human. And, hell, his human was fucking loving it.
His cock was throbbing, blood pounding through the veins, mirroring what was happening in the rest of his body. Reluctantly, he pulled out of her mouth.
“I want to come inside you. No barriers between us this time.”
She was a werewolf now. There was no need for a condom. Her cycle was that of a wolf. She would only be fertile during the mating season.
Drawing her up alongside him, he lowered his head, licking one pretty pink nipple. Cindy writhed in delight and he drew the tender tip fully into his mouth. He sucked thirstily, his tongue stroking and licking, as she squirmed against him, her nails biting into his shoulders.
She was already shaking in his arms. Every muscle in her body tight and tense.
“Sebastian . . . what you do to me.” Her voice was hoarse as he slid his hand down between her legs. Finding the tiny, throbbing bud of her clit, he circled it, feeling it swell and grow beneath his touch.
He moved into place with his cock poised at the entrance to her vagina, parting her folds with his hardness. His lips moved over hers as he drove inside her.
The tight snugness, the heat . . . she felt incredible wrapped around him. White-hot fire shot along the length of his cock as Cindy lifted to him. He stretched her. The feel of her flesh parting for him was like nothing he had ever experienced. A pleasure so perfect he bowed his head as he gave himself up to it.
Cindy gasped his name as he pushed all the way into her.
She was burning with the same desperate hunger, her body shaking with the same power that was surging through him.
“You promised me hard.” She bit her lip as she jerked her hips upward.
Her muscles flexed around him and he groaned.
“You want hard?”
With a sound close to a snarl he drove into her, full length, his thick shaft filling her. His engorged head hit high and hard. And Cindy went wild. Gripping the sheets, she arched her back, digging her heels into the mattress.
“Yes. Like that.”
Sebastian began to move. Lifting her legs around his hips, he fucked her wildly. His balls slapped against her pelvis. Flesh hit flesh as he took her, branded himself into her with savage thrusts.
Tension was gathering between them and around them. He could
feel it flexing in his own body and in the tightening of her muscles. Fire was roaring through his veins, stripping away his control, driving him toward a precipice that he welcomed and feared with equal intensity.
His cock felt like an iron rod as he shafted it into her. Too hard, too heavy. Beneath him, Cindy’s legs tightened around his hips, her head fell back and she gasped out his name. Her cunt tightened and gripped him hard enough to hurt as she screamed out his name. Her nails pierced his shoulder as her release tipped him over the edge.
Sebastian felt himself falling over that waiting precipice. Orgasm exploded through him, tearing his body into tiny pieces and flinging them out into space. He gave himself up to the sensation, gasping and resting his head in the curve of Cindy’s neck.
Mate sex. Perfect sex.
Coming down from that high took forever. And left him feeling hungry.
He turned to Cindy, who was lying on her back with her arm flung across her eyes.
“I’m going to get a snack. Join me?”
When they had dressed, they wandered downstairs to the kitchen. It was the middle of the afternoon, and it felt decadent to spend time in bed when the rest of the world was working. As Cindy drew steaks and water from the fridge, Sebastian was surprised to look out of the window and see Valetta’s car in the drive.
When he went through to the family room, both Samson and Valetta were there. “You guys are home early.”
“Valetta got a call from the Realtor. They have someone who wants to buy the house.”
“Do they want to view it?”
“Apparently not. They liked what they saw online enough to make an offer. The Realtor is coming out to discuss the details,” Valetta said. “This was my childhood home, but after recent events, I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to it.”
With perfect timing, the intercom buzzed and Samson answered it. When he went to the door, he returned with a man who looked frighteningly businesslike. Clad in a black wool overcoat and a silk scarf, he carried a leather laptop case.
