by Michele Hauf
Don’t be silly. He said his were mind is also present when he is the wolf.
Inhaling, Bella drew up courage. She could do this. She wanted to do this.
She held out her hand, not sure if she was offering friendship or her scent for it to smell. Probably both. Just so long as it didn’t find her tasty.
It? No, this was her lover. That same piercing dark stare took her measure now. At the corner of its jaw, one canine tooth peeked out. It wasn’t snarling at her, though. She hoped.
And then it bowed its head and lifted a paw to its jaw.
She didn’t know what it was trying to convey.
“Severo?” She leaned forward on her elbows and the wolf padded closer. “Come to me.”
The wolf whined lowly and padded up to her. It sniffed at her hands, then at her hair. When its nose grazed her ear, she flinched and cautioned herself not to make any quick moves.
Closing her eyes, she wished it gone. Why had she thought this a smart idea? It was smelling her. Probably wondering how easily it could rip her up for dinner.
No, don’t think it. He is Severo. There must be some part of the wolf that recognized her and wanted not to harm her.
A nudge of its nose to her wrist made her wonder if it wanted her to…touch it?
Bella lifted a hand, and carefully, slowly, she reached to smooth her palm over the short fur between its ears. The wolf nudged her wrist again in an encouraging manner.
It didn’t seem to be hungry or to have a carnivorous intent in mind. Bella released her breath and relaxed.
She ruffled her palms through its soft fur. It was thick and silken, unlike that of any dog she’d ever accidentally touched. And it didn’t threaten her at all.
“You’re gorgeous, lover.”
Chapter 11
H e awoke with a start. The air breezed across his back with a cool kiss of oncoming autumn. The night had died and he lay on the patio tiles, naked, scratched on the forearms and legs. And hungry, as usual.
A soft murmur made him turn over. Bella smiled, coming up from a sleep of the angels. “Morning, lover.”
She’d come out to meet the wolf? Brave woman.
But not the bravery that meeting his werewolf would require. And he did want that to happen. The urge had struck last night. The werewolf had known. A potential mate was close by. It had taken all Severo’s influence to keep it away from the house.
“I love the wolf,” she said on a sleepy smile.
And he bowed his head against her breast and held her tight.
“How’s it coming along?” Evie strode into the brightly lit laboratory and traced a finger along the stainless-steel counter. “Was the hair sufficient?”
Ian Grim glanced up from a grimoire he’d been poring over. His dark hair hung over one pale eye and he licked dry lips. “Excellent actually. I’ve almost figured out how to deactivate the protection wards.”
“And the binding spell?”
“I’ll need another week for that. Patience, my lady. You’ve been dreaming of this revenge for decades. Another few weeks will only make the reward much sweeter. I don’t understand your goal, though. Why not kill her?”
“Think about it, Grim. Of all the paranormals in this realm, what two species most clash and hate one another?”
“Used to be we witches and the vampires.”
“Yes, but now that the Protection spell has been lifted, I’ve no fear of your blood. So you know what that leaves.”
“It is an interesting prospect. I wish you the best.”
“I don’t need your wishes. I need your spells. Back to work, Grim.”
The studio was small, lined from a mirrored wall to a cement wall with raised hardwood flooring. Off in the corner, a guitarist strummed as a female dancer breezed through a routine of stomping feet and twisting arms and hips.
Tonight was the audition session Bella had told him about. It was important to her, so he’d wanted to be here for her.
Severo wasn’t interested in any of the women waiting for their chance to dance. He grew alert only as Bella took the floor, her arms moving out gracefully and twisting above her head to assume a beginning pose.
The black skirt hugged her legs and the heavy white ruffles fell above her ankles. A fitted black leotard put her breasts on display and made him jealous that two other men stood in the room.
He lowered his head and observed through his lashes as the music began.
Bella’s body, sinuous and sleek, captured the music and spoke to his most feral desires. Below the waist she was forceful and loud. Above, she wove a sorrowful story with her arms and dramatic twists.
And then a man approached her, cocky and stiff, as if he were a bull approaching the cape. Which, Severo guessed, was the purpose of the dance.
He didn’t like this man. The dark hair that slicked over his ears and the focus he gave to Bella raised Severo’s hackles. He stomped out a rapid array of footwork, which stirred the other dancers to a cheering rhythmic clap.
Bella bent backward, one hand clutching her skirt up high, so a half arc of ruffles swirled from wrist to ankle. Fiercely determined, she snapped her wrist to a hip and spun about to mirror the male dancer as he tormented the floor with his heels.
The man charged her with the dominating steps of a bull. Shoulders thrust back and body sleek and straight, the man focused his attention on Bella’s face. His feet tortured the wood floor as he stomped about her, claiming, defying. Owning.
Severo exhaled. Hell, he was jealous of the man wearing dance shoes and a gold-spangled bolero jacket.
But he checked his anger. If he was jealous, that could only be a good thing. That meant he wasn’t obsessing about Aby. The realization made him momentarily sad, but he chased the feeling away with a try at the palmas, or hand clapping.
It didn’t work. His focus remained on the mere inches of space between the male dancer and Bella.
The air was charged with pheromones, and the scent of their dance disturbed Severo. And then the man reached up to stroke the side of Bella’s face—
“Enough!” With two strides, Severo insinuated himself between the two.
The guitarist stopped. The male dancer swore in Spanish and stomped off. Bella’s look cut Severo sharply, but the small pain did not squelch his anger.
“You’re leaving now,” he barked.
He tugged Bella from the room and slammed the door behind them.
In the hallway she wrestled her wrist from his grip, then shoved him in the chest.
“You ass! What do you think you just did?”
“I didn’t like the way he was touching you.”
“Touching? Touching?”
“He was marking you with his scent.”
“His scent?” She let out a frustrated groan and, grabbing her duffel from the assortment of bags on the floor, marched away. “You’ve embarrassed the hell out of me and made damn well sure I never dance at this studio again. Marking? Get a clue, wolf boy. We were dancing!”
He rushed after her, but she eluded his grip. “Don’t touch me.”
“Bella, he was being aggressive with you. You may not be able to perceive such subtle cues, but I can. He had more in mind than dancing.”
She spun and swung up a palm. The slap to his face cracked loudly. Severo retaliated with a growl and he clasped her throat with one hand.
“You are an animal,” she said. He dropped his hand then and, turning, she stomped off, the metal on her heels clicking angrily.
“I’m not an animal.” He swallowed. His hand was still clenched and ready to choke anyone, anything. “Oh hell. Am I?”
Chapter 12
B ella stomped inside her loft and barely took time to unbuckle her dance shoes before kicking them across the rug.
The violet suede shoes were her lucky shoes. “Lot of good they did. That idiot wolf!”
Heading directly for the shower, she squeezed past the overzealous bamboo plant, shedding her skirt and top on the way.
“He thought Tony was putting his scent on me? What kind of freak is he? Oh right, a werewolf freak.”
It was good to be home. It had been nice at Severo’s estate, but after tonight, she wasn’t in the mood for his raging alpha hormones.
At least he had taken a hint and had not followed her home.
A shower and scrub with lots of lemon bath gel refreshed her, but Bella stayed under the water stream for half an hour, till the water got cold. Lost in the patter of water, she allowed her thoughts to flee and she found a tolerable medium between anger and peace.
That the man could so easily toy with her emotions troubled her. And then she knew it was because he meant so much to her. If she meant half as much to him, shouldn’t he have known his actions would destroy her?
The sun had set by the time she exited the steamy paradise. Tugging on a silk robe, she padded into the kitchen to browse the fridge. A few nonperishable items remained, though none appealed to her. Not even the half tub of milk-chocolate frosting.
“I miss Heloise’s cooking. Oh! What is it with that man? He’s always so…macho. So controlling.”
She’d thought she liked that about him. But how could she after what he’d done tonight? He’d ruined any chance of her getting the apprenticeship.
She didn’t know how to deal with his possessiveness. How did a girl date a wolf and make it work? “Mom never had any advice for that one,” she told herself aloud.
Diana Reynolds, who had headed off to Tunisia a month ago to work with a charity organization, would have told her daughter to face the challenge head-on. Don’t let it upset you. Look at the reason why it’s in your life. To teach you something.
Teach her? But what?
To be less controlling? But in exchange for being controlled?
That didn’t jibe.
To be more accepting of those unlike her? She’d always been open-minded. Prejudice was not a word in the Reynolds household.
To love? She loved. Many. But Bella had never loved deeply like this before.
Was romantic love supposed to ache as well as feel good?
Scratching her head, she surveyed the room. She didn’t feel in the mood for a swim. The computer sat silently mocking her lack of attention.
“I should check my e-mail.” It had been over a week, and though her current clients didn’t require immediate attention, she never knew when a new client would contact her.
Booting up the Mac, she waited while the Entourage program downloaded 220 e-mails. That would take a while to sort through. And she was still too frustrated to sit quietly and do work.
Instead, Bella went to the Internet and searched Google for werewolf.
Wikipedia called them lycanthropes, humans with the ability to shape-shift into a wolf or a wolflike creature.
The loup-garou in eighteenth-century France was a feared and hunted creature, blamed for killing dozens of men, women and children.
Their weaknesses were silver and wolfsbane. And the idea of a werewolf bite transforming a mortal into a werewolf was purely a fictional creation.
Weren’t werewolves themselves supposed to be fictional?
And yet, knowing they were real wasn’t so awful. Just…
“Pissed,” she muttered sharply. “So pissed at him.”
She clicked to another site and another. They all rehashed the lore and legend and featured artists’ renditions of the creature. But none of the sites told her about the man she was dealing with. She searched Google for wolf.
According to the Internet they usually ran in packs of six to eight. Yet, she thought, Severo had never mentioned other werewolves. The site also said a wolf could be an alpha, but to do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a female to mate with.
Bella clutched her throat.
She read more. The wolf’s sense of smell was about one hundred times greater than a human’s. She knew that. They also marked their territory. So it was an ingrained thing with Severo, she realized. Was he worried Tony was marking his territory?
That still didn’t explain his reaction at the studio.
She read more. “A wolf may growl to indicate warning or dominance.”
Severo growled a lot. And it always turned her on if they were making out. He was dominating her.
A shiver traced her shoulders and arms. A good shiver.
A rap on the patio door made Bella sit up, alert. It was getting late. Who could that be? A vampire? In her anger, she’d forgotten the danger, the reason Severo had coaxed her away from her home in the first place.
Would a murderous vampire knock first? she reasoned as she walked over to the door. Through the long white sheers she saw the shadow outside—a big male shadow who wore a leather jacket.
“Go away!” she called through the glass door.
“I’m sorry,” Severo said, his voice calm and low. “Please, can we talk?”
“I’m not in the mood.” She peeked through the curtain, found he stood with his back to the door, and then dropped the curtain and paced around the living room.
This seemed to be his MO. Stalk her when she hated him. Overwhelm her with his caveman aggression and awkward charm to win her over.
“It’s not going to work tonight,” she muttered, with a glance to her abandoned dancing shoes.
He could have no idea how much earning an apprenticeship with Tony meant to her. Web design was fun, and it paid the bills, but it required one’s butt in the chair all day. Dancing? Well, Bella couldn’t get enough of the motion, the freedom, the utter abandon.
“Bella, please.”
“Don’t say my name,” she whispered. She clutched her arms across her chest in a less than reassuring hug. “Just go away.”
He couldn’t hear her soft, trembling plea. But if he was so keen on picking up her scent, why couldn’t he also hear through walls and windows? Shouldn’t paranormal sorts be able to do all kinds of fabulous things with their senses?
And yet, his sense of propriety was off the scale.
“Wolves are protective of their mates. They mate for life,” she said, repeating the information she’d read online. “And werewolves are creatures, not humans.”
With a shudder, she paused before the patio door. His shadow was not there, but she could see a figure now standing before the pool’s edge.
“He’s not going to leave.”
Resigned to make the best of it, at least to try convincing him to leave, Bella pulled the door open and slipped outside. He remained before the pool, looking down.
At an amazing sight.
Bella joined Severo at his side. Dozens of white water lilies floated on the surface of the water. The streetlight across the alley shone over the water and glinted in the droplets dewed on the pale petals. Gorgeous. And fantastical.
Bella swallowed and looked up at Severo.
“Roses are so common,” he offered. “I figure you’ve received dozens from previous suitors. These caught my eye. They’re a pitiful apology, but they’re a start.”
Her anger dissipated. The tenderness in his voice struck her. He knew he’d done wrong. She wished it hadn’t been such a devastating wrong.
“The pool man is going to have a fit,” she said, and bent to sit and dangle her legs in the pool. Lifting her toe, she caught a bloom on top of her foot and balanced it there. The bright yellow center winked at her as it bobbled. “This doesn’t begin to make up for what you did earlier.”
He knelt, one leg stretched out to the side, hands clasped between his thighs. He hadn’t yet met her gaze, so she knew he was feeling remorseful. Good. Mr. Big Bad needed to be knocked down a few pegs.
“I should not have accompanied you to the audition. I’m sorry. I just…You can’t understand what it’s like for me to stand by and watch my mate interact with another man.”
“It’s called dancing. People do it all the time without falling down and having sex.”
He swiped a hand over his face and gritted out, “But you’re mine.”
“You’re my mate, Bella.”
“Is that how it’s supposed to be for a werewolf’s mate? Secluded away from the rest of the world, never allowed to hold a conversation with another man for fear he may look at her the wrong way or, heaven forbid, shake her hand?”
“Please, Bella.” He clenched his hands into fists, fighting aggression. “This is new for me. I’m trying not to be the he-man, as you call it, and to make this relationship work.”
“New?” She tipped the flower off her foot and cast her toe about in search of another. “You’ve never had a mate before?”
“No.”
“But you’ve had sex with women.”
“Doesn’t make them my mate. I explained this. You are the only one for me. You’ve met the wolf, and it accepted you. No other woman has met the wolf.”
He was trying, she could tell. It must be killing him not to simply grab her, kiss her and drag her home by her hair.
Home. She’d just considered Severo’s mansion to be home. She’d known him but a short while, and already she felt as if he was a part of her life. And some parts of life weren’t always fun and joyous, but occasionally sticky and downright meddlesome.
“Severo.” She breathed out and closed her eyes, drawing in the lilies’ scent. “Despite the fact that this is the strangest relationship ever…and that you are not a gentle or compassionate person…and that you insist that everything goes your way…and that when you find someone you want, you take them, no matter their concerns…Despite all that, a part of me is in for the ride. I mean…”
She sighed. Was she going to admit this after only moments ago reveling in her anger?
It was futile to resist.
“This feels right. And I do love you.”
Smiling a careful smile, he reached in to the pool and plucked a blossom. He tucked it over her ear, and a few droplets of water ran down her cheek. He traced one droplet down to her jaw.
“And yet, I don’t want to sacrifice my life to be a part of yours,” she added.
“You needn’t.”
