by Dani Dundee
“I will make sure this never happens again,” Wulf said, blood still rushing in his head.
“Let’s just go,” she said. “I want to go home.”
Wulf took her under his arm, protecting her from anything that might happen behind them. He muttered to Dieter, “With us,” and announced to the rest, “One minute. Upon my mark, exit.”
“Any other instructions?” Luca called.
Wulf surveyed the evil, evil men in that room who had abused and injured his wife, all on their knees or flat on the ground. Stoppard was holding both sides of his face.
Wulf’s lip curled. “No. Meet at the cars.”
Dieter followed them out, walking backward and covering the room with the gun. Wulf drew his own gun and clicked the safety off, holding it beside his trouser leg.
He held Rae around her shoulders until they were safely in the SUV’s back seat. He cradled her to himself as Dieter climbed into the front passenger’s seat. Leandro, in the driver’s seat, slammed the car into gear.
“Wait for the others,” Wulf told him. Into his phone, he said, “Exit now.”
Within five seconds, his men thundered out of the door, running flat out for the cars. As soon as three filled the back seat, the doors slammed. The SUV jumped as Leandro floored it.
Wulf glanced back. Two snipers sprinted from the parking lot and reached the other SUV as the rest of the entry team exited the hotel. The other SUV pulled away from the curb behind them.
Only then, Wulf relaxed.
When Rae started crying against his shoulder, he murmured to her, trying to console her, finally remembering to switch to English. “Reagan, everything is all right now. You were tricked, yes?”
She nodded. “Hester said that my mother was in the hospital, that she’d had a heart attack.”
“We have you. You’re all right now.”
“I didn’t think they’d lie to me. I never thought they’d do something like this.”
He stroked her hair, unwilling to tell her to be more callous, more calculating. “You can’t leave your security, not even for a moment, not even with someone you trust. There are too many things that can go wrong.”
She nodded against his chest, and the SUV rocked them together as they drove through the city and into the hot afternoon sun.
Traffic clogged the hot desert roads, baking the asphalt under the tires. Leandro drove them toward Wulf’s house for an hour, blocked in by trucks, cars, and SUVs.
Rae sobbed against his shirt the whole time. Wulf stroked her hair, trying to comfort her. He had raised his sister Flicka through her teen years, so he knew when to comfort but not to pressure.
She finally said, “I’ve never seen you so angry.”
His face warmed in the Southwestern desert sunshine. “Oh, no. I never get angry.”
“You sure looked angry.”
“I was concerned,” Wulf said.
She hiccuped. “I hope you never get that concerned at me.”
He stroked her hair. “Never.”
Back at the house, Wulf installed Rae at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice to wait for the cooks to fix her a sandwich.
He shook Dieter’s hand as they walked back to the garage.
Dieter said, “Next time, ‘Wait until we have secured the room,’ means for you to wait outside.”
Wulf ignored him. His legs had carried him into the room when he had heard Rae scream. “You will bill us for today?”
Dieter frowned at him. “God, no. Your wife was kidnapped.”
“I insist. This was a professional service. If I need you again, I don’t want to be shy about calling on you.”
“I’ve never thought of you as shy about anything, Durchlaucht.”
Wulf shook his head. “You’re running a business. You can’t provide services gratis to people who, by all rights, should be your clients.”
Dieter shrugged.
Wulf had advised Dieter when he had developed his fee structure and helped him with his business arrangements. “I’ll double your customary fees and deposit it in your accounts if I don’t receive a bill.”
“You do use money as a weapon, don’t you?”
Oh, if he only knew the extent of it. Wulf said, “The plane will surely leave tomorrow. I’ll text you the itinerary when the flight plan is filed.”
Dieter grimaced, and he practically snarled, “I’m sure my wife will be delighted when I tell her the trip was delayed. Who’s staying at Schloss Southwestern during the wedding?”
“Hans volunteered.”
Dieter nodded but said nothing, his gray eyes as flat as cold, alpine rain. He slapped the garage door button and walked to his car.
Back inside, Wulf pulled Rosamunde, his house manager, aside. He said, “We’ve had a problem.”
“There were shots fired? Someone has found you?” Her voice rose to nearly a shrill pitch, one of the very few times that Wulf had heard that from her.
“No,” he reassured her. “No guns. I’ll explain later.”
Rosamunde glanced back toward the kitchen door. “Is she all right?”
“She’s hungry. Shaking. Deeply upset. However, we will need to retain a moving company to remove my father from Schloss Marienburg to the house in town.”
Rosamunde glanced at the floor. A dark gray strand fell from her messy bun to rest on her cheek. “That will be a formidable job.”
Wulf had stolen Rosamunde from his father while she had been the manager of Schloss Marienburg, the Gothic revival castle of his ancestors, where his father chose to live. “Will this be a problem?”
Rosamunde drew herself up. “See to your wife. I will take care of the rest.”
They went back to the kitchen.
Rae was already eating a chicken sandwich with sliced fruit. Bloodshot veins traced the whites of her eyes, but she ate steadily. Their chef, Yvonne, stood over her, watching every bite.
Ah, German efficiency. Wulf smiled and sat beside Rae, stealing apple chunks from her plate.
Yvonne turned her thin face toward him. “I saw Dieter eat the lunch I set out for you. Did you eat anything?”
He shrugged.
“It’s tea time. Good Lord.” Yvonne bustled off to make him a sandwich.
Wulf whispered to Rae, “You’re holding up admirably among the staff.”
Transparent tears swelled on her lower eyelids. “We missed the flight. We’re not going to Switzerland. I messed everything up.”
“We’ll refile the flight plan for tomorrow. I’ll text Flicka to have her rearrange some things. There’s nothing to worry about.” He leaned closer to her. “Eat. You need some rest. Let’s go upstairs.”
“I’m pulling myself together. I’m not even that hungry.”
He breathed on her neck, where her tee shirt met her shoulder. She inhaled just slightly, and she darted quick glances at him while she munched her sandwich.
Good, he had her full attention.
He checked to make sure that Yvonne was preparing his sandwich at the opposite counter with her back toward them, and he ran his teeth over Rae’s neck.
Rae arched her neck, and she hummed.
It was unseemly to molest his wife in the kitchen in full view of the staff.
His hand stole to her lower back, and he kept his lips just a fraction of an inch from her neck near her ear. He whispered, “More time for us here.”
Rae cleared her throat and watched her plate. She was breathing faster.
He backed up just as Yvonne turned, holding his lunch plate.
While he ate, he found opportunities to touch Rae, to caress her, to keep her mind on his leg, his hands, and his mouth, rather than thinking about the afternoon.
He ate quickly, and once they were done, he nodded to his chef and took Rae by the hand to lead her upstairs.
One of the housekeepers was sloshing water into the enormous ferns in the main receiving room, and another was pushing a hissing steamer over the marble floors by the tall windo
ws overlooking the pool. Everything was back to normal.
Wulf saw Rae notice them as she walked past, and guilt stole over her sweet, dark eyes. She still thought that she should join in when she saw maintenance being performed, no matter how many times Wulf reminded her about his people’s jobs. The staff loved her for it, so he didn’t say too much. They knew that he wouldn’t lay off any of them, no matter if his wife did sometimes pitch in.
They reached the grand staircase rising to the upper floor, and as Wulf stepped on the first riser, his right knee felt unaccountably weak.
Odd.
Rae said, “I’m starting to shake it off. I mean, it was terrible, and I kind of hate the world right now, but I’m okay.”
“You need to lie down for a few minutes,” Wulf said.
“I’m really okay if you need to go do something else. I’ve got a lot of research to do. My profs loaded me up at those meetings this morning, which feels like a lifetime ago,” she sighed.
“I insist,” Wulf said.
“You—you insist?” Rae followed him, her footsteps pattering on the marble staircase. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine.” He led her up the stairs, each step a little more difficult than the last, until they reached the landing.
He walked along the balcony, still holding Rae’s soft, little hand in his, while the tremors in his legs climbed to his chest.
“Wulf?” he heard her whisper from beside him. “You’re shaking like mad. Are you all right?”
Something must be wrong with the air conditioning. A cold wind was blowing through his business suit and rushing down the back of his collar, chilling his spine and the deep scars on his back.
“Wulf?”
A thick ring of black smoke surrounded the door to their bedroom, and it tightened, swirling inward. He pushed through it, shoving open the door, his hand jittering on the wood, and stumbled inside.
Wulf bounced off one of the bookcases that lined three of the walls, floor to ceiling. The rainbow of books, meticulously shelved by color, smeared in his vision.
“Wulf!” Rae called, somewhere far away from him.
He whispered, “Honestly, I’m fine,” and reached for her, desperate to touch her hair or her skin.
Honestly, I’m Fine
Rae grabbed for Wulf as he collapsed in front of her, his legs folding as he dropped. She managed to get an arm around him and slow his fall, mainly because he was reaching for her. His arm dragged on her waist. “Wulf!”
“Honestly, I’m fine,” he mumbled.
“You’re not!” She unwound his arms from around her waist, but he kept reaching for her. His fingers clutched her wrist and her arm. She asked, “Does your chest hurt? Can you see? Can you breathe?”
He grabbed her shoulder and dragged her down, grappling her until she was lying against him, her head pressed to his chest. Under her ear, his heart beat steadily but fast, so very fast.
She looked up at him. His eyes were squeezed shut. Lines of pain radiated from the corners. She said, “You’ve got to tell me if you’re okay.”
He nodded. His jaw bulged at the sides, and he kept his chin tucked to his chest.
“Promise me that your chest doesn’t hurt.”
He nodded, but his arms tightened around her.
Rae twisted in his arms, reaching up to him, and brushed her lips across his in what she had meant to be a tender kiss. Surely he needed tenderness right now, a gentle touch.
Wulf’s arms locked around her, and his kiss burned across her mouth. He swiveled and pushed her down on the thick carpet, scrambling over her body.
Oh. It didn’t take a Ph.D. in psychology to figure out that Wulf had exactly one way that he allowed himself to express emotion. Rae crawled backward on the floor under him and kicked the door closed.
Wulf reared up and pulled his suit jacket off his arms, flinging it away. He swarmed over her, pinning her down with his body. His collar was already open and he hadn’t worn a tie that day, so he wrenched his shirts off over his head, a wince creasing his forehead when he pulled on the scarred side of his back too much.
The desperation in his dark blue eyes startled her, and he grabbed her again, kissing her hard and driving his tongue into her mouth. One of his hands was tangled in her hair, and he unbuttoned her blouse with the other.
When he broke off the kiss and bent his head to rake his teeth over her neck, she said, “Wulf, don’t you think we should talk—”
He covered her mouth with his hand, while he chewed his way down her open shirt and pushed her bra aside with his chin.
Rae knew that she should be protesting about now, that what would be most psychologically healthy for Wulf would be to express his emotions and talk about what had happened that afternoon, how it had affected him, but his hot mouth found her breast and he sucked on her, drawing her up and running his tongue over the peak.
Passion caught her, and she arched against him, whimpering.
His hands became rougher, grabbing her skin and shoving her clothes away. He unzipped her jeans and yanked them, managing to get them off one of her legs while he clawed at his own pants, kicking them off and prying her legs apart with one of his knees.
She reached for him, trying to bring him up to kiss her again, but he trilled his tongue against her clit, sending zings ricocheting through her until she was shaking and crying out with need. Wulf climbed up her, his strong fingers almost bruising the skin on her ribs and shoulders. He fit his body between her legs and his mouth on hers, kissing her again, and he pressed himself inside her. His shoulders were still shaking in her arms, and he stroked into her, filling her and releasing.
She moaned against his mouth.
Wulf buried his face in her shoulder, panting, and lunged into her. She pushed her hips up, grinding her clit against him as he drove himself into her.
She was spiraling tighter with each thrust, holding onto him as he pounded cries from her. Rae held on around his neck, her body a taut arc under his as he shoved himself up and into her. Her body clenched, and the hard stab of his cock into her rubbed inside her and on her. A deep tension strained until she fell over the edge.
Pulsing waves rocked her, and she clung to Wulf as blood roared in her ears and his body shuddered in her arms. His muscles rippled down his back, and his breath blew harsh near her ear.
Rae gasped and held him tightly, her head still spinning.
Wulf held himself off her body with his forearms and breathed on her neck below her ear. “You can’t leave your security,” he choked out. “I thought you were kidnapped.” She could hardly hear his harsh whisper. “I thought you might already be dead.”
She stroked his back, the side without the terrible scar, trying to reassure him. “I’ll tell my mother what they did, and she’ll make sure that they never try anything like that again.”
He wrapped his arms around her, and his arms strained as they tightened. “I am begging you. Stay with your security.”
“I won’t leave them. I promise I won’t.”
His voice lowered. When Rae managed to squirm so that she could see his face, his eyes were squeezed shut.
He whispered, “I thought I had lost you. I thought you were gone.”
She wound his arms around his neck and pressed herself to him, holding on. She wanted to say something flippant, something to make him laugh like he couldn’t get rid of her that easily or she was too stubborn to be killed, but he was far beyond that.
She said, “I’ll never leave them again.”
“Flicka used to run from her security when she was a teenager,” he whispered. “She thought it was a game until one man got her into a car. Her security got her out just before he drove off.”
Rae gasped, “Oh my God.”
His teeth were clenched so tight that his cut jaw bulged on the sides. “I can’t lose you.”
Repercussions
Later that evening while Rae slept, Wulf sat in his office again, alone,
staring at the blank monitors and holding his cell phone to his ear. It was late in the evening in Germany, about midnight.
Unaccustomed flutters still inhabited his chest. His face heated, but he kept his voice calm, low. He asked, “Did you think that I would make idle threats?”
“Don’t you threaten me,” Wulf’s father, His Serene Highness, The Hereditary Prince of Hannover, Philipp Augustus, said.
Wulf tended to use all of his father’s titles in his own head out of habit because one of the servants had always presented him and his twin brother to their father using all their titles when they were children, standing together, unmoving, and waiting for it to be over.
Wulf said, “The trucks will arrive in two days to remove you to Kaiserhaus in the city. You’ll have a minimal staff. Your allowance from the trusts will be cut by two-thirds.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” his father sputtered.
Wulf was too angry to be gratified. “I absolutely will.”
“Constantin would never have done this to me.”
The thick mass of scar tissue on Wulf’s back kept him from leaning back in the office chair today. “Constantin is dead.”
“He would have made a much better prince.”
This was an old tactic, one that Wulf didn’t much care for. “You met Constantin a total of thirty-one times, all before he was nine years old.”
“And yet, I know that he would have been a good prince and a good king. He had a regal personality, an authoritarian presence.”
Wulf was finished with that line of conversation. He lowered his voice. “If you ever interfere in our lives again, before the wedding or thereafter, I will make far more draconian cuts. Is this perfectly clear?”
“I understand.” And yet he sounded dismissive, like he didn’t believe all this would happen.
“Stay out of our lives. Do not contact me nor anyone about Rae. How did you know where her family was, and how did you know that we would be skiing last week?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Wulf could hear his father’s sneer all the way across the Atlantic ocean.
It didn’t matter.
