At the thought, his wolf stirred. His inner beast kept trying to tell him she was his mate. Though normally he trusted his wolf instinct above human, this time he wasn’t sure what to think.
He wanted her. He needed her. But did he truly love her?
He suspected he did. If so, he had grown foolish and careless since coming here. Loving someone like her could only bring pain.
Chapter 16
Luckily, Alisa and Katya arrived a moment later, saving him from developing a true black mood.
“Good morning,” Alisa said, sounding so impossibly bright and cheerful that he wanted to kiss her.
“Yes, good morning,” his assistant-turned-Alisa’s-chaperone seconded, reminding him of all the reasons he couldn’t.
He responded as pleasantly as possible, considering the circumstances.
“What are we going to do today?” Alisa asked, her breath catching as though she shared similar thoughts.
“More of the same.” He refused to let the grimness of the former results get him down. “I’m going to retest everything. There has to be something wrong with the results.”
“Why do you say that?” Katya sounded curious, though oddly strained.
“Yes, why do you say that?” Alisa seconded.
“Because I’ve run a DNA profile, done every blood panel possible. I’ve viewed the results of the complete body scan that was done on you, plus done a CT scan of my own, and damned if I can find anything even remotely unusual.”
Alisa snickered. “So I’m normal. I could have told you that. I’m just like anyone else.”
“But that’s it. You’re not. No one else can do what you can do.”
She sighed. “Sometimes I wish I couldn’t, you know. I had no idea that people went crazy when they didn’t change.”
He felt a twinge of sympathy for her, which he immediately squashed.
“Pampered, privileged, perfect little royal princesses certainly aren’t in touch with the real world,” Katya drawled maliciously.
Her comment surprised him. She could be fired for such insolence. Until now, his assistant had hovered in the background, responding only when spoken to. After all, she was a personal assistant to Alisa’s parents.
Still, Katya was right. Her comment served to remind him of the differences between Alisa and him. He needed to remember what she was, who she was, especially when he woke in the middle of the night alone in his bed with her name on his lips as he’d done last night.
Would he ever get over this craving for her? Logically, since they’d made love, that act alone should have slaked his thirst, not made him burn for more.
But nothing about Alisa inspired any kind of logic. Nothing.
His body stirred, even as he replayed in his mind the carnal passion they’d shared. He’d never experienced anything like it, not even with the woman he’d once believed to be his mate, until she’d betrayed him. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever experience anything like it again. Once he left Teslinko and went back to America, he saw a barren emptiness yawning in front of him for the rest of his days. Life without Alisa.
Katya cleared her throat, reminding him of her presence.
Stop, he ordered himself. He’d never been prone to poetry or romantic thoughts of any kind. Why should he be different now? He needed to focus, get back on track. He’d always thought of himself as a scientist first and foremost, a man second, and didn’t plan to change that now. Not for her, nor for anyone.
“Of course people go mad,” he said. “Katya, what is the longest you’ve gone without shifting?”
“Me?” Obviously, his question surprised her. “I’ve gone three weeks tops. But I’ve always been afraid to go too long.”
“Why?” Alisa asked, sounding curious.
“In my village, we had two aberrations. One was a man who tried to stay human too long, and he went mad. The other was a Feral who didn’t want to leave her wolf shape. She too went mad. The Protectors from Italy came and got her. I never knew if she was exterminated or…” she stumbled over the unfamiliar word in English, her heavy accent making it almost unrecognizable “…rehabilitated.”
“Protectors?” Alisa said the title as though the concept was foreign to her. “What do you mean?”
“Did you never hear of the Protectors?” he asked carefully.
“No.”
Somehow, he was not surprised. “They hunted Feral shifters and tried to rehabilitate them. Many of those Ferals went mad from trying to remain in one form too long.”
“One form? You mean human, right?”
“Or wolf,” Katya put in. “Like the Feral from my town.”
Braden cocked his head, considering. “I have to say I’d rather be human. Though I’m sure a lot of shifters would say wolf.”
“I don’t know.” Alisa went on the defensive. “The thought has never occurred to me to stay wolf longer than I had to.”
“And now?” He couldn’t resist the question.
“I still don’t find the idea at all appealing.”
This conversation kept getting more and more interesting. He had a sense that they could be on the verge of the breakthrough he’d been looking for. But for some reason, he found Katya’s presence unsettling.
“Katya, have you broken your fast?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Food was brought to the princess’s room and she and I ate together.”
“Well, I haven’t,” he lied. “Would you mind getting me something to eat?”
“I cannot.” Her response was swift and emphatic. “I have been charged with the duty of acting as the princess’s chaperone. As such, I cannot leave you two alone together.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Alisa interjected. “We’re in the lab. We’ve worked together like this for weeks. What do you think is going to happen? And since when did a personal assistant have such power?”
Rather than answering, the other woman sniffed. Though Braden had no idea what she looked like, he imagined she watched them with narrowed, suspicious eyes and a pursed mouth.
“Enough.” Alisa’s sharp voice sounded regal. “Katya, I order you to bring the doctor something with which he can break his fast. The task should not take you longer than ten minutes. I doubt anyone can do anything untoward in ten minutes. So go. Now.”
The other woman shuffled off, her sullen gait showing what she thought of the order.
As soon as the sound of her footsteps faded, Alisa wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.
“I’ve missed you,” she murmured.
Gently, but forcibly, he disengaged himself and stepped away from her. “I’ve missed you, too, but we need to work.”
“Work?” She sounded both hurt and incredulous. “I arrange for us to have a few minutes alone, and you want to work?”
“We’re running out of time,” he told her, keeping his voice gentle. “I’ve got to discover the answer before those rebels wreak havoc on the rest of your country. You don’t want anyone else to get hurt, do you?”
“Well, no. But why can’t we just take advantage of Katya’s brief absence and enjoy each other? With all the guards, it’s not like we’ll get to spend the night in each other’s bed.”
If she only knew how badly he wanted to do just that.
Instead, he had to focus on his work ethic. He had to believe there was an end in sight, a solution to the question he’d been asking for weeks.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, meaning it. “But I don’t have much time left to find out what it is about you that enables you to—”
“Remain human,” she interrupted. “You know what? I like being human. I enjoy it. And if I decide to banish the wolf part of me forever, I will do so. Understand? That’s all there is to it, nothing more, nothing less. I decide.”
She took a deep breath. “I am tired of being probed and studied and tested like there’s something wrong with me. I enjoy being human more than I do being wolf. Deal with it.”
Some
thing about her tone, her words… Some tiny hint, the meaning of which hovered just out of reach. If only he could decipher it.
“Why do you not enjoy being wolf?” he asked carefully. “Surely, you like it a little bit at least? We all do, after all.”
“Enjoy?” She began to pace, her heels clicking. From this, he deduced that she was giving his question some serious thought. “It’s okay, I guess. Fun when I’m in the moment. But I don’t really crave it.”
Interesting. Keeping his face expressionless, he pretended to concentrate on separating out two sets of glass slides. “But your wolf, what about her? Doesn’t she fight you? Doesn’t she long to run free?”
She stopped her pacing. “Why do you speak as though my wolf half is separate from my human side? We are one and the same, not two. We are each merely different aspects of the whole. My wolf is me and wants what I want. I control her and she accepts this.”
She sounded as though she was smiling. “Back to the experiments. What happens now?”
Was it his imagination, or did she sound sort of breathless? Deciding it didn’t matter, he focused on her question, not wanting to push too much with his. Though he would need answers, he didn’t want to badger her with a barrage of questions all at once. A defensive Alisa wasn’t a helpful Alisa.
“We need to step back and reevaluate. Beyond that, I honestly don’t know.”
Her scent turned his head as she circled him, the way a stalking wolf circles prey. Though he couldn’t actually see her, his sense of her was so strong that the strange awareness he shared with her showed him exactly where she was.
“Are you declaring your experiment a failure?” The taunting note in her voice was designed to get a reaction.
He refused to give her one. “My research has not concluded.”
“Then what next?”
“Good question. For today, we will rerun the tests.”
She came to a stop in front of him, her body a foot from his, awareness shimmering in the air in front of him. “You don’t have an answer, do you?”
“Not yet,” he said. “And until I do, I’ll keep on. I’ll ask more questions and record your answers. Run the tests once more. Whatever trait or gene you have that makes you special will occur to me with enough time.”
He swallowed hard, trying to ignore the almost physical pull he felt toward her. “I will discover your secret.”
“And what if I don’t have one, Doctor? What then?”
“You do.” He spoke with certainty. “I simply haven’t found it yet.” Now that he knew about how she had somehow merged her wolf into her humanness, he had a lot more to work on. Instincts told him that exploring this would lead the way to the answer he so desperately sought.
“You can’t be certain of that.” Now she definitely sounded husky. And closer. Much closer. His wolf stirred, growing agitated. Where the hell was that Katya? If he didn’t know better, he’d guess she’d stayed away longer than she needed to on purpose, so she could catch them doing something they shouldn’t.
Speaking of temptation…
Alisa sighed, her breath fanning his cheek. If he put out his hand he could touch her. He’d actually started to raise his arm before realizing what he was doing. Damn. Instead, he took a step back, refusing to let his beast rule him or let human desire govern his actions.
But that didn’t make him need her less. Damn, he wanted her. Again. Making love with her one time hadn’t lessened the craving. If anything, he desired her more.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to concentrate on what was really important here. His research. “I know that something unique to you gives you your ability. I’ve not yet exhausted the scope of available tests. In time, I will find out what that is.”
“Will you?” She made a sound, something in between a snort and a laugh. “You keep running tests. My DNA, my blood, even my urine. All on my body. Has it ever occurred to you that what I do might be all in my mind?”
Her mind? Puzzled, he cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“That I can control my mental stability myself because I only change when I want to.”
“That’s like saying you could fly without wings just because you wanted to. Obviously that’s not possible.”
“Obviously, it is.” She mocked him. “I’m proof of that.”
“What about your wolf? When you go a long time without letting her out, does she not begin to fight you for the right to be set free?”
Her silence told him she was carefully considering his question. “Since it appears you cannot understand what I tried to tell you earlier, let me rephrase. My wolf is well-trained,” she finally said. “She is subservient to me and obeys me.”
“Trained?” He jumped on the statement, which quite frankly boggled his mind. “Explain, please.”
Now she moved away from him, making it easier for him to breathe. Judging from the sound of her footsteps, she’d begun to pace the length of the room and back.
“As much as I hate to use the analogy, from the time I was a child and my wolf a cub, I began to train her, the same way one might train a new puppy.”
With difficulty, he kept his face expressionless. Most shifters would regard this statement akin to blasphemy. Comparing wolves to canines was considered the worst kind of insult. And the concept of training one? Wolves were wild beasts and as such, considered not trainable. Among the Pack, most shifters relished their wild lupine side.
Braden chose to ignore all preconceived notions and insults, focusing on the concept rather than the words. “Now you speak like you regard your wolf as separate from you, like she’s an entirely different entity. Before you claimed there was no separation. Explain.”
She stopped her pacing. “It’s complicated.”
“I think you can unravel it, if you try. Explain it to me.”
“I believe I can.” After a moment’s pause, she spoke without hesitation. “But in the past, when I’ve spoken about this, others have acted as though I was strange and unusual. But surely everyone has to have some sort of control over their beast, otherwise we’d be shifting to wolf at the most inopportune times.”
“True,” he mused. “But your control goes deeper than most.”
“There you are. I am not so different than you.” She sounded relieved. “My beast is just better-trained. And while my wolf is part of me, her needs and wants and desires are completely separate from mine. I had to chose which would be more important.”
“A conscious choice?” Fascinated, he stood still, wanting to hear more. “You’re saying that at some point you realized that only one could be the leader, your wolf or you.” A novel concept, though Alisa appeared to think it was nothing out of the ordinary, which explained why she hadn’t mentioned it.
“Yes. She is very tough, my wolf. She fought me. She wanted to change when she wanted, not when I did. Training was necessary. To put this as simply as possible, I’ve trained my wolf that my human desires take precedence over her lupine needs.”
Amazing. While all shifters did this to some degree, none had taken it this far. Their dual nature meant that at some point, both sides must have their share. Or go mad.
He still didn’t understand how Alisa kept that from happening. “You must be very strong-willed.”
“Of course I am. I always have been, even as a child.”
Such a concept truly intrigued him, though he had to discount it immediately. If such a thing were actually possible, the repercussions were limitless, if people believed and could be taught. That would be no easy task, as he wasn’t even sure he believed her. He would, he decided, need proof.
When he told her this, she laughed. “I am living proof. What more do you need?”
Still laughing, she swept past him, trailing her hand across his chest as she went. He caught her, grabbing hold of her wrist and yanking her to him.
Just like that, the air around them changed, becoming charged. Slowly, he reeled her in, pulling her to him. S
he didn’t resist—instead, he felt her do a graceful sort of dance as she swayed into him.
And they kissed. This time, the third time, eagerness amplified by memory, her lips felt tantalizingly familiar.
Their mouths melded together and their breathing, in unison, became jagged. Raising his head, he held her, nose to nose, chest to chest, reveling in this perfect instant in time. Inside, his wolf, long past alert, began to rage.
Braden had to say something, do something, or this would rapidly escalate beyond his ability to control.
“I need to change soon,” he said, his voice like gravel. “My wolf is fighting me. It’ll only get worse.”
She touched his arm, sending his senses into overdrive. “We can’t here, not…”
“I realize we can’t anywhere on the beach,” he finished for her. “Isn’t there somewhere close to here? I don’t need a lot of room.”
“Is this urgent?” Spoken with the true lack of understanding of someone who’d never had a fierce need to change. “How long can you wait?”
Still standing close to him, she drove him crazy with her scent. Meanwhile his wolf continued to fight for control inside him. “Not long,” he rasped. “Not long at all.”
Instead of moving away, she moved in closer, slipping an arm around his waist and pressing her side into his. He caught a whiff of her again, and more. This time, the tantalizing scent of desire drifted to him, igniting an answering fire inside him.
His body swelled and his wolf finally quieted. Waiting. Watching. Dangerous, that.
When she turned into him, he met her halfway. Hungrily, greedily, his mouth found hers. Like waves crashing against a sandy shore, desire rammed into him.
“Stop.” The heavily accented voice had him jumping back guiltily. Katya. How had they managed to forget her? And who had given her so much authority?
“You will move apart this instant,” Katya ordered, as if she had the right.
He was about to argue, but Alisa’s touch on his arm carried a warning.
“Now!” Katya sounded both outraged and—as he’d known she would be—smug. “Get away from each other. Move. Right now.”
The Wolf Princess: The Wolf PrincessOne Eye Open (The Pack) Page 20
