by Lisa Daniels
Wouldn't it be funny, Frey thought, if they dated each other as well? Wouldn't that be such a strange twist of fate? The idea delighted her, and lit a warm hearth in her chest. Wouldn't that feel like fate, indeed?
Not that she was one for believing fate had a hand in the lives of people. People made their own fates.
Evo and Luelle jumped when a banging noise came from the hotel entrance.
Instantly, Frey cursed the fact she'd been negligent in leaving her Taurus upstairs, instead of automatically carrying it with her wherever she went.
It could be the police, it could be wolves.
It could be trouble.
“Hide. Now.” Frey dashed to Luelle, bundling her with Evo to the stairs. “I'm grabbing my gun.”
“It might not be anything bad,” Luelle said, doubtful, fear clouding her eyes.
“Yeah, well, we're not taking chances.”
Yanus blinked sleepily as Luelle was tossed into his room. “Wha – ?”
Frey reached for her Taurus, and Yanus suddenly became wide awake, his green eyes glowing. Frey placed a finger to her lips before bounding downstairs with her brother, even as the pounding continued to echo through the entrance.
By the door, Evo called, “Who is it? Who is knocking so early in the morning?”
“Elinor,” a muffled voice responded. “Elinor Spirova.”
Frey shivered fear. Fuck. One of the ancient families.
“Why are you here? Tell us, please!” Evo bit back a growl.
“Because I need to talk to you. I'm alone. You may be in grave trouble.”
Evo stared wildly at Frey, who shrugged, mouthing “Can we trust her?”
“What trouble? And how do you know the trouble will be here?”
“A vengeance party is coming. Whatever happened with you guys, you didn't clean up well enough. The Koroslavs know their son is dead. They know one of the Armanev sons is hiding Luelle – because some idiot sent a text message to his parents. And if you remember, they have a Koroslav relative in the family.”
Oh, shit. I remember that message! “Why are you telling us this?”
Elinor scratched at the door, her powerful, deep voice reverberating through Frey's ears. “Because three Russian clans have decided to cross into Bulgaria and they've slaughtered members of my pack in the surrounding towns. They're infecting humans, breaking our laws. And they're going to march right up to the seat of power and demand for Luelle, or a blood vengeance. Given their frenzy, even if we offer Luelle, they might just decide to screw us over anyway. We will look ripe for the picking to them.”
At this, Frey opened the door, revealing a tall, Valkyrie of a woman, dark yellow eyes resplendent in her face. She looked like a product of the mountains, a child raised with the knowledge of the cold and the dark. Every inch an Alpha.
Elinor nodded, her lips curling in a snarl. “We need every fighter we can get. And we may need this place to become a hospital and refuge. I'll post some steep protection in this town. As for Luelle, because I know she's probably here...” Elinor strode in, sniffing the air. “Yes, I smell her. You'll need to take her with my brother Markus, to his place in America. However, he's not going to be going back to America straight away. He's here to kill Ricten Spirova.”
Frey blinked. “Markus Spirova... kill... Ricten Spirova?”
“Ricten is a mad dog. He should have been put down years ago. He's the same ilk as the Lubanovs, and we all know what happened to them.”
Frey sighed, heading to a chair and sitting in it. “This is fucked up. I don't even know what to do.”
Elinor ignored her, now prowling around the hotel to check the rooms. Her short, dark blonde hair tufted around the collar of her jacket. Evo and Frey followed after the Alpha, who nodded in approval at the rooms. “Yes. This will be a good base.”
Finally, she walked into the room with Luelle and Yanus Armanev, who both growled at her as she entered. With a vicious bark and a flash of yellow eyes, her presence cowered the wolf in Luelle, but rankled the one in Yanus. He stood up, matching the snarl, his teeth sharpening, hairs beginning to form on his hands.
“You still have bite. Good,” Elinor spat. A smile covered her contorted features. “You'll need it.” She glided out of the room, closely followed by Evo.
Yanus blinked in utter confusion, the ferocity dissipating from his face. “What? What the hell was that?”
Frey flumped on the bed beside him. “Trouble.” Frey stared at the empty corridor, where Elinor and Evo had gone.
“Why is she here?”
“Trouble,” Frey repeated. She explained about the Russian clans, the message Yanus had sent to his family which resulted in the knowledge passing on. He started trembling in guilt and frustration, and Frey clutched his hand tightly.
“It will be okay. We'll get through this. We'll protect your sister.”
“If they kill my whole family because of this...” Yanus squeezed her hand, almost crushing the bones in it. Frey endured, hissing deeply.
“We'll get through it.”
Luelle, sensing that they needed a moment, made her excuses and departed from the room, leaving Frey and Yanus alone.
“Frey. I'm so sorry. We brought this on you.”
“Don't be sorry. We chose to take you in. We chose to help.”
Yanus pulled her in close, transitioning from crushing the bones in her hand to squishing the air out of her lungs. “Thank you.”
“No problem. We're in this together.”
“I love you,” he whispered into Frey's ear, then making her gasp in surprise.
Whatever she'd been expecting, that wasn't it. She pulled back from the hug to stare into his haunting green eyes, her heart thumping painfully.
“Didn't think you'd ever hear those words, did you?” He said slyly, some of his fear turning into amusement.
Frey merely shook her head, speechless, before finally rasping, “We're probably all gonna die due to rabid Russian werewolves and you decide now that this is a good time to say something like that?”
“Better before we die. And you're certainly a one of a kind woman.”
“Fuck,” Frey said. She lay on the bed, happy and despairing at the same time. “Fuck you.”
“Gladly,” Yanus said, grinning.
Frey laughed, placing an arm over her eyes. To hear someone say those words to her and mean it, it melted all the hard points over her heart. It pissed her off as well, because she knew that things were likely going to go to shit in the next few weeks, and Yanus needed to disappear to America with Luelle.
Maybe she should go with him. Would her little brother come? Would he stay?
She thought about his affection toward Luelle.
Steel entered her resolve.
For better or for worse, it seemed the Radev siblings had twisted their lives with the Armanev ones.
Where Yanus went, she would follow. She reached for his hand again, and held it gently. “I'm with you. Whatever happens. Wherever you go.”
Lips brushed her cheek. “I'm counting on it.”
The End
Luelle’s Mate
Shifters of the Bulgarian Bloodline
(Book 4)
Prologue:
It made Luelle sad, to learn of Arina's ruined childhood. A hardness existed in her face now, speaking of the memories that changed her life forever. It turned what should have been a happy reunion to one marred by shadows, for Luelle had her own demons to contend with. Right about the time it seemed Arina's family had been slaughtered by flesh hunters, with the twisted form of Ricten Spirova eternally imprinted upon her memory, Luelle suffered her own personal hell.
Her newly wed husband, Heigan, turned out to be sadistic, psychopathic, and evil. Trapped in a country where she could neither speak Russian or English, it left her a prisoner of the Koroslav family. Even having her mind creep near the wealth of horrors was enough to bring out cold sweat over her skin, to make her cry, retch and gnash her teeth sometimes i
n the night until she woke up, and remembered that chapter of her life was now over.
She'd been only twelve, and baffled to find out her husband had a child near her age. Now twenty-seven, semi-fluent in Russian and English, she made her escape, and brought down their wrath.
“Sometimes I think the world would be better if all the werewolves in it could just die,” Arina had said, when they both sat on the balcony of Springmoon Hotel, staring toward the gathering dusk. “You all are just awful to each other. The way you treat humans as cattle, somewhere I can understand that, if you're meant to be an apex predator. But abusing your kind when you think you're superior to everything else? Why? What's the point?”
“We are like humans in that regard,” Luelle had replied, her voice cold. “We are hideous to each other, or brilliant. I was raped by my husband, his son...” Luelle's voice trailed off for a moment, and the bile of hatred rose to her throat. Her teeth sharpened at the caustic memory. “But it wasn't all terrible over there. There were good werewolves, and good humans, which made the bad times bearable.”
Arina examined her old best friend for a while. She still had that penetrating stare, which made you think the weight of the world lay in her eyes. “Your family don't give a shit, do they?”
“Only Yanus.” The knowledge froze Luelle's heart. She had been treated like garbage, sold as a commodity to cement an alliance which crumbled apart around them, even as they spoke. Her mother and father refused to understand. To see.
Sunset dipped into the sleepy town, and the clash of water and pipes over the hot springs reached her sensitive ears. The wolf inside her was a savage beast, and Arina smelled good, edible. She smelled like prey. But, just as humans chose to eat vegetables, so a werewolf chose to not eat their lesser and weaker cousins.
Now a cross-country clan war boiled in session. Opportunists might deliver her to Koroslav hands in an attempt to quell the violence.
The very real possibility remained that the ancient families were outnumbered, and that their reign was over.
It didn't help that the ruling family prioritized Elinor as leader over her male counterpart. To the Russian clans, Luelle knew it meant an invitation, a sign that the old blood was succumbing to weakness.
Once this debacle ended, Luelle hoped she'd be on the other side of the conflict, across the Atlantic and in the wilderness of North Dakota.
Chapter One
The first casualties came within a week. Minor werewolf clans from isolated homesteads got picked off one by one, to deplete the potential reinforcements of the three noble families.
Luelle stood at the bedside of a small boy that Frey Radev tended to, daubing an icy towel over his feverish head. The boy in question simply stared at the ceiling, the absence of hope in his eyes. Elinor stepped in behind, drawing the attention of the two women.
“Hey. Small update. Negotiations are falling a bit flat. Heigan Koroslav is acting like he won't talk to us until he gets you back,” Elinor said, jabbing a finger at Luelle, “but in the meanwhile, he's systematically eliminating Bulgarian born werewolves west of Sofia. Which, if you ask me, is just rude.”
The boy's eyes drooped, to focus on Elinor. Frey folded her arms, appearing like a hunk of rock, expression guarded. “Will it be worth trading in Luelle?”
Frey's casual drop irritated Luelle. Although she identified the woman as an eminently practical individual, being treated as an object sent her mind to dark places. Heat built up behind her eyes.
“I'm not sure. We can't have Luelle running off yet. Not until we know for certain. If the slaughter grows to unheard of proportions, Luelle, we might need you to bait them or, worst case scenario, trade.”
“You trade me, I'll kill myself,” Luelle said, her lips thinning. She meant every word. Her hands shook. “So it better only be as a last resort.”
“Noted,” Elinor said. Her apathy irritated Luelle as well. Of course, they had other, pressing matters to deal with, such as the potential annihilation of everything the Bulgarians stood for, and a slow usurpation of another clan who would return the mountain regions to their barbaric roots and probably introduce a mass extinction event of eastern European clans.
Still, it would be nice for a change to not be treated like dirt. Luelle fumed as she left the room, fully intending to sulk to her bedroom and huddle up into a ball of anger and frustration. Along the way, she bumped hard into Evo at the corner, who sought his sister out for some advice.
“Oh!” The werewolf said, apologetic as Luelle rubbed her shoulder and glared at him. Sapphire eyes met hers, and it was as if a spotlight now shone on Luelle, illuminating every facet of her body. The contrast of Evo's light eyes with his dark skin proved an endless source of fascination. In all her life, Luelle had never met a dark-skinned person in the flesh. They were few and far in Bulgaria, and in the snowy region of Siberia, dark skin gave those choosing to live in the chill-flecked country a huge disadvantage.
She kept wanting to touch his skin, to see how it felt and compared with hers. The puffy frizz of his hair made her think of wire-brushes. She could likely run her cheek along that, triggering a series of static shocks. She was pretty convinced that the experience would be glorious.
“Uh, am I distracting you right now? Because I can cover up,” Evo said, grinning with one eyebrow raised.
Luelle flushed, her thought-truck grinding to a squealing halt. Already, wisps of anger left her body, dissipating into the air. Damn him for being devilishly handsome, under a pinstripe shirt and snug fitting brown pants. “Sorry. I was actually gonna go and sulk in my hotel room.”
“Oh? Why?” Evo peered past her to see his sister and Elinor Spirova in the room with the boy, murmuring to one another. “Not to do with my sister? Because she can irritate people for sure.”
“Yup. And Elinor. They were discussing about whether it might be worth trading me if the invasion isn't beaten back. Told them I'd rather die.”
Evo's eyes darkened into an indeterminable expression. “I know it's why they want you around. I suppose they just rubbed it in your face.”
Something cracked in Luelle's mind. Fighting back unexpected, intrusive tears, Luelle managed, “Yeah. It's been the only reason why anyone wants me around. So I can be useful.”
Leaving Evo in a mix of shock and ill-concealed curiosity, Luelle whirled past him, bottom lip wobbling. What was wrong with her? The last thing anyone needed right now was some kind of emotional meltdown, for her to do something stupid or to snap every time someone even came close to sensitive subjects. She had survived. Not always gracefully, or kindly, but she had survived.
Everything's okay. Everything's fine. They won't sell me out. We won't lose. I'm not a victim.
Easy to convince herself otherwise. All she knew that whatever happened, death was preferable to being tossed into Heigan's liver-spotted arms, to the mercies of his leering pack. A shudder of revulsion rippled through. At least the son was dead, eviscerated by Evo Radev, her brother and the Forsythe couple. That chapter of her life now buried itself under mud.
However, everything about this current situation served to dig at her nerves. What was even the point of being a werewolf, proclaimed as one of the most powerful living creatures on the planet, if all that happened in her existence was a long period of being stuck behind bars?
I want to be free. That was the whole point. Not hiding my head in the shadows, or being held as a bargaining chip for these stupid family games. Why can't they just leave me alone, for once?
Small chance of that. The casualties were coming, and slowly filling up the spare hotel beds, from wounded youngsters to wizened old dogs, far past the prime of their feral blood, and left for nature to claim.
To boot, it looked like the Armanev family didn't plan to join in on Elinor's hastily sprung defenses – instead thinking it a great idea to side with the invaders.
Sure is a giant mess. Arina is right. Our kind are seriously fucked up.
Left to the corruptio
n of her thoughts, Luelle stared at the ceiling, with the cracks in the wood from the constant dips in temperature over the years. Frost built up on the window, which gave her a view of a run-down street, with cars clogging up the pavement on either side, without the luxury of a residential car park to hold them.
The hum of a lonely motor sped past the hotel now, and Luelle suppressed the urge to morph, to feel the wolf crack her bones and tear up this flimsy excuse for a room, or shred the tattered, threadbare sheets that needed three layers to keep someone warm in the dead of winter.
“I want to be in America already,” she huffed to the empty room. Her lip jutted out like a petulant child's.
“If you want,” Evo said, sliding through the door as the hinges groaned, “certain things can be arranged.” He gave an incipient grin, blasting maximum charm her direction. Luelle stirred herself out of the negative funk to gape at him, half amused and half exasperated at the same time.
“I swear, both you and your sister are stalkers. She keeps approaching me as well out of the blue, quiet as a cat. And let me tell you, it's hard to sneak up on a werewolf.”
“Well, when you have wonderful parents like ours, you get to learn a few tricks.” He sauntered over to the bed and smiled down at her, eyes bright in interest. Having someone like Evo around made the days a little sunnier. He had that sort of gravitational pull about him, capable of absorbing all shards of negativity in a room. He held that kind of special quality in his winsome smiles, his easy, unrestrained manner.
It felt nice to have a man look at her as someone valuable and worthwhile speaking to, and not use her as a doll.
“What were your parents like, then?” Luelle waved her hand in the air, stretching her fingers to examine the blemishes. She needed something distracting, something to take her away from her decaying thoughts.
Evo crawled onto the bed next to her. He was three years younger. Luelle didn't know what to make with the information. Everyone she knew if they started dating always married someone older. Wiser.
