Dire Wolves of London Box Set

by Carina Wilder

  “Yes, well, your scar’s cool,” Bry. “Mine, not so much.”

  “Yours is amazing,” Phair said, “because it means you’re a survivor.”

  Bry stared up into his eyes, a look of wonder settling into her features. “I can see why my sister likes you so much. Both of you. Thank you…for not judging me.”

  “We’re half animal,” Cad said. “Animals don’t scrutinize in the way that humans do. It’s only humans who are so cruel and superficial. Besides, you, like your sister, are beautiful. You should really know that.”

  Bry blushed and looked away. “Maybe there’s hope for me yet,” she said. “Out in the world. That is, if I ever see the outside of this place again.”

  “Of course there’s hope,” said Mir. “Any shite who would judge a woman by her face isn’t worth a moment of your time, anyhow. I should know. I’ve met plenty of men who were only too happy to use me for an hour because they thought I was pretty, then chuck me to the curb. That’s not love. It’s not even like.” She looked up at her two shifters, her heart full. “Love is something deep inside. Something real, something that doesn’t alter with wounds or time. Love is kindness and warmth and protection. It’s as real in the dark as it is in the light.”

  “Then I feel a lot of love right now,” Bry replied. “Thank you all for protecting me tonight.”

  “We shouldn’t have had to,” said Cad. “Like Phair said, you were in that position because of us.”

  Bry shook her head. “I was in that position because Barton is a sadistic bastard who likes to scare defenceless people.”

  “A sadistic bastard who will soon find that he can’t hurt anyone anymore. At least we hope not,” said Phair.

  “Listen,” said Cad, throwing a glance at Mir, “will you two be all right tonight? Do you want us to stay here?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Mir said, though a hard dose of disappointment was making its way through her insides. She’d hoped to have more time with them. To feel their bodies against hers again, perhaps even for the entire night.

  But that would have meant leaving Bry, and the fact was, she wanted to spend the night close to her sister. She’d already left her behind once tonight; she probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy herself if she did it again.

  “Okay,” said Cad. “But before we go, there’s something I want you to have.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a mobile phone, a charging cord and some cash. He unlocked the phone and handed it over to Mir, along with the money.

  “The things men manage to conceal under their clothes,” she chuckled. “You’re like those magicians who cram rabbits into hats.”

  “Yes, we’re clever that way. Listen, this is my second phone. I don’t use it, but you should keep it on you,” he said. “Both of you should program in your fingerprints to unlock it. If there’s any kind of emergency at all, call the last number that was dialled—Bert’s number—and help will come quickly. Got it?”

  Mir nodded. This Bert must be some kind of head shifter or something.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow,” said Phair, looking into her eyes for a moment. She saw a promise in his gaze, the promise of something wonderful. “Perhaps then we can finish that…conversation…that we started earlier.”

  “I’d love that,” she said. “And really…thank you both. For everything.”

  “No,” said Cad, “it’s we who should thank you, Mir.” He nodded towards Bry. “It was very nice to meet you, and we look forward to getting to know you better under happier circumstances.”

  With that, the two men left for the night.

  Chapter 19

  When he found himself sitting in his living room the following morning at ten, Phair told himself that he should have been thinking about the plan that he and Cad had been slowly hatching. About how they would take down a powerful man like Barton tomorrow. Quietly, surreptitiously, even as the bastard was playing poker in the same building, completely oblivious to what they were up to.

  He should have been thinking about the fact that they no longer had Roth and the Pack on their side, that they’d alienated the Alpha when they’d let themselves fall for Mir.

  He should have been working on getting more shifters on board—maybe some of the Grizzlies who were beginning to come around on the idea of an alliance.

  Yes, he should definitely have been pondering all of this. Problem solving. Figuring out how to complete the task that had been assigned to them, how to get back on track, to become an honourable member of the Pack once again.

  But the truth was, all he could think about was the fact that he and Cad were going to see Mir again in a few hours. He couldn’t bring his mind to concern itself with Barton’s awfulness, or with Roth’s displeasure. Couldn’t find a way to care about anything but the woman who now owned his heart.

  His mind swirled with memories of her scent, her taste, her body writhing under their touch in the underground tunnel. A sweet disease was consuming him from within, terrible and wonderful at once. It seemed as though nothing could alleviate his brain-fog except for more time with her. So there were only two questions to ask.

  One: how much time could they have together tonight?

  Two: Would she even want them anymore, after the near-disaster last night? It was entirely possible that she’d realized they were irresponsible idiots, unworthy of her affection. They had, after all, nearly caused her sister to suffer a devastating injury.

  “You look like you’re a thousand miles away,” Cad said as he wandered into the living room in a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt, mussing his hair with one hand as he grasped a coffee mug in the other. He’d spent the night in Phair’s guest bed, and he looked as though he’d slept like a baby. “I don’t suppose I need to ask why, do I?”

  “No,” Phair replied, turning to his partner in crime and lust, his mind clearing for a moment. “You know as well as I do what’s going through my mind. You know what I want, what I need. But I suspect that you also know what I’m afraid of.”

  Cad nodded. “Tonight,” he said. “The Ritual has to take place tonight. Tomorrow all hell may break loose. This is our one chance to be with her before that happens.”

  Phair nodded. “True. Unless, you know, she’s changed her mind.”

  Cad sat down on the armchair by the flat’s large front window. “She hasn’t,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “I know it. I’m sure you do, too. She’s ours, Phair. Just as we’re hers.”

  Phair’s eyes narrowed, not so much in doubt as in focus. “Correction,” he said. “She was ours. We nearly cost her sister a hand last night, remember. It’s possible that Mir has realized by now that we’re not the most desirable blokes to take on as mates. As much as it pains me to say it, she may well have come to her senses by now, even if she does have strong feelings for us both.”

  Cad smirked. “Well, I can’t be selfish enough to make that my prime concern. All I can say is that after tomorrow, I hope she and Bryanne will never have to worry again about being in danger. Whether she still wants us or not, we’ll get them out of Barton’s place. We’ll see to it that their parents are safe, too.” He leaned forward, set the mug down on the coffee table, and stared Phair in the eye. “You have my word on it. We will help them, and the other women in that place, too. I don’t care that Roth and Lumen are displeased with us for veering away from our original task. I don’t care about any of it. What matters is that we help Mir, that we help everyone tangled up in Barton’s snare.”

  “So let’s say we set them free, and maybe we find a way to help Mir’s family,” said Phair. “What then? I want her to have a life, and Bry too. I want them to be happy. They’ve been through a lot.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Cad, leaning back. A slow smile slipped over his lips. “I want that too.”

  “You look like you’re vaguely pleased about something. You shouldn’t be pleased about any of this,” Phair chastised. “It’s serious. They’ll need help on the outside. I want
more than anything to be able to provide it. Especially for Bry—Mir has us, but her sister’s all alone.”

  “If I look pleased, it’s only because I talked to Bertie last night, after we got back here.”

  Phair raised an eyebrow and leaned forward in his seat. “Oh?” he asked. This was…interesting. “What about?”

  Cad chuckled. “Well, you know Bert. First came the requisite pandering to my muscles and brawn. But after she’d satisfied her urge to glorify me as a deity, I told her I wanted to know if she had any open positions at the Syndicate for two very capable and intelligent women. I did mention that one of would very likely be empowered with the blood of a Béorn and a Dire Wolf shifter, in case that helped Mir’s cause at all.”

  Now Phair allowed himself a hint of a smile. “That sounds…actually, that sounds amazing, Cad. But I repeat: Oh? What was the outcome?”

  “She said she can find a place for them both, if not as Hunters, then as investigators. I’m sure that her employees would be happy to show them the ropes. We’ll need all hands on deck in the coming months if we’re to find our way to a lasting peace with the human population. The more humans we have on our side in the meantime, the better. It’s a win-win for Mir and Bry. It’s a win for shifters, too.”

  Phair’s smile broadened. “Well, thank you for that,” he said. “I mean it.” He exhaled a deep breath. “You know, you’ve really put me to shame, Cad. I’ve said it before, but I’m very glad I had you pegged all wrong.”

  “It’s nothing,” Cad replied. “Neither you nor I recognized the good in one another at first. I’d say it was a relatively honest mistake.”

  “Fair enough.” After a moment Phair pulled his gaze towards the window and stared out at the cloudy sky that hovered low over the treetops. “Still, I’ve been unfair to you all this time. I judged you harshly from the first. I never thought I’d find good in you.”

  “Yes, you did judge me,” Cad replied. “Very harshly. But maybe I deserved it. I’ll admit that I can be a cocky bastard at times. I can’t exactly blame you for noticing my shortcomings.”

  Phair let out a low chuckle. “Well, anyhow, I’m sorry for assuming that you were a cocky bastard at all times. I thought you should know that, given that we’re about to embark on something that could last all our lives.”

  “I’m not worried. But for the record, all our lives might wind up being rather a short timeline. It’s entirely possible that one or both of us will die tomorrow, you realize. We’re about to infiltrate the computer system of the head of a major criminal enterprise. That’s not exactly something one does without expecting to be assassinated promptly.”

  Phair glared at him. “You’re spoiling my apology, you sod.”

  Cad shrugged. “I’m just saying you might get off easy. If I die horribly, you can breathe a sigh of relief for being rid of me.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, given how I felt about you just a few days ago, Cadman. But if you die horribly…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll be rather sad.”

  At seven p.m. as usual, the two shifters strode into Club Bacchus. Phair was wary, his senses on high alert for anything out of the ordinary. But he’d already reminded himself more than once that Mir had a mobile now; if there was a problem she could have dialled the number Cad had mentioned.

  They hadn’t heard a peep, so he could only assume that everything was all right.

  When they didn’t see Mir or Barton in the main room, he and Cad made their way towards the Blue Room. Gunner stepped out in front of them just as they reached the corridor and put a hand up to stop them. He looked nervous, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “I trust that you’re not intending to take her anywhere tonight,” he said quietly, his voice trembling enough to let the shifters know he hadn’t forgotten how terrified Phair had made him last night.

  “Of course not,” Cad replied with a grin. “If we did, we might get back late, discover that you’re about to hurt someone she cares about and have to shred you into bite-sized pieces. We wouldn’t want that, would we?” With that, he tapped Gunner on the cheek with his hand.

  “Just checking,” Barton’s employee said, attempting a chuckle but failing miserably. The sound came out more like a suppressed sob. “The boss wasn’t happy last night,” he said, looking around and leaning in. “With any of us.”

  “The boss needs to learn to untwist his knickers,” Phair replied, patting him so hard on the shoulder that he nearly collapsed under the blows. Well, torturing the fucker was certainly proving quite fun.

  “Agreed,” groaned the thuggish man, backing away as soon as he could get away from Phair’s reach. “He probably does. Have a good night, then.”

  “Oh, I think we will. We’ll be with Mir for some time. Don’t interrupt us.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Phair and Cad exchanged a satisfied look as they made their way towards the Blue Room’s door. Quietly, Cad tapped three times.

  “Yes?” sang the familiar voice they’d both come to adore.

  “Special delivery for a very special lady,” Cad replied.

  “I hope it comes in two packages,” she replied, letting out a laugh that sounded like pure joy. Phair smiled. Apparently Mir hadn’t changed her mind after all. “Come in,” she chimed.

  Phair pushed the door open, and once he and Cad had made their way in, closed and locked it behind them. When he turned back to the room, a vision of splendour met his gaze.

  Mir, it seemed, had gone all out for tonight’s intimate evening in. Candles flickered on every possible surface, granting the space an ethereal, magical glow that reminded him of the secret tunnels under the city.

  Mir was a vision, standing in the middle of the room. She was dressed differently from her usual fare: she wore a long dress of translucent white layers. Something in its design made her look like a Greek goddess, its fabric flowing towards the floor in a stream of airy lightness.

  No—it’s not that she looks like a Greek goddess, thought Phair.

  It’s that she looks like a bride.

  Without a single word, Mir had confirmed his hopes. She was, without a doubt, going to give herself to them tonight.

  Chapter 20

  Mir had spent the previous night with Bry in her cramped bedroom, her body lying protectively between her sister and the door, just in case one of Barton’s idiots should come knocking—or worse, barging in.

  But no one had come.

  In the morning, though, Barton had called her into his office. She’d walked in, tense, her body braced for the worst. She didn’t know what he’d say or do. All she knew was that she didn’t want him putting his hands on her. Didn’t want his fingertips or lips sullying the places the shifters had touched the night before.

  When she’d walked in, Barton had been sitting at his desk, staring at his monitor. He’d looked up at her, a strange, ominous sort of smile on his face.

  “You were late getting back last night,” he said quietly. But he didn’t rise to his feet. Didn’t threaten her, for once.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “No, it won’t, because you won’t be leaving this place again. Not ever. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  That was the entire conversation. He’d dismissed her immediately.

  His words should have devastated her, but instead she’d departed his office with a smile on her face the size of Bristol. Because the fact was that he was wrong—she would leave. She knew it in the very depths of her soul. Cad and Phair would see to it that she and Bry would find a way to escape. They were going to make sure that all the women reluctantly working in this awful, hellish establishment would be free at last, and that their families would be protected.

  A few days ago, she wouldn’t have dared to hope for a life outside of the club. Her only companion for so long had been quiet despair; she’d forgotten what hope even felt like.
>
  But now, standing in front of Cad and Phair in her white dress, reading the hungry looks in their eyes, a searing shot of euphoria worked its way through her system. She knew now that she’d grown to love these two men. She loved them for all sorts of reasons, but most of all, she loved what they were. For what they gave her.

  Respect, warmth, companionship.

  Most of all, they made her feel loved in return.

  “You look beautiful,” Cad said as he stared at her with famished eyes. He and Phair were still standing by the door, keeping their distance. Waiting, no doubt, for an invitation to come close.

  After all the hours they’d spent together, these incredible men still didn’t take her for granted.

  She looked down at her dress, an inevitable smile brushing itself over her lips. It wasn’t by accident that she’d chosen to dress in white, of course. Tonight represented two things: an end to her old life, and the beginning of a new one. One with Phair and Cad by her side.

  “Really, really beautiful,” Phair echoed.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “So do you two. Well, handsome, I suppose, is a more apt word for it. Though I miss your casual clothing from last night. I must say, you two are sexy as hell in jeans.”

  “Why, thank you. By the way, the candles are a nice touch,” Cad said, looking around.

  “I thought we should have a special setting…for the Ritual,” Mir replied. As she uttered the R-word, she watched the men’s faces for a reaction. It was very forward of her, she knew. She was essentially saying We’re going to get naked and shag, boys.

  But what was the point in playing coy, after all?

  “The Ritual, is it?” asked Phair, whose smile was the biggest she’d ever seen. The hulking man moved forward until he stood right in front of her, then took her chin in his hand, raising her face so that she could look him in the eye. “Are you quite sure you’re ready for this?”