by Eve Langlais
Anger at herself for melting into him again. So. Fucking. Easily.
Anger at Klaus for not being willing to fight for them.
Anger at Niles for making it a fight at all.
If she could cling to that fury bubbling beneath the surface, right under the pain, just maybe she could walk out of that meeting and away from Klaus with her head held high.
And then? She could go home and let herself fall to pieces.
Chapter Six
Klaus stood in the foyer pacing. The chill that had been dogging him since he’d gotten to town was nowhere to be found. In fact, it felt like he was burning up.
“You’re going to wear a hole in that rug,” Niles said, eyeing him from his seat on a leather ottoman beside the fireplace.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” he snapped back.
His father’s dark, bushy brows caved into a frown but before he could respond, the doorbell rang. Klaus crossed the room and opened the front door, his pulse jacking up a notch as he did. Most of the pack was already assembled in the great room, and a flash of disappointment zipped through him as he realized it wasn’t Petra. Hot on its heels was joy, though, as he took in the faces of Rachael and Sean, each holding what looked to be a bundle of blue blankets.
“Holy shit, is it good to see you, man,” Sean said, his blue eyes going suspiciously bright as he leaned forward, yanking Klaus in for a one–armed man–hug.
The blanket between them wriggled and let out a soft sneeze and Klaus pulled back, his heart knocking against his ribs.
“Nicklaus, meet Ivan. Our baby boy. Younger by two minutes.” The proud papa beamed as he tugged down the covers and showed off his son’s round, pink–cheeked face.
Ivan. Just looking at him gave him an urge he’d never felt before. To see his own son, swaddled and plump. To teach him to play ball. Or a girl might be even better. Maybe she’d want to play ball too. He could teach them to fish, like his father had done…
Klaus cleared his suddenly dry throat and reached out a finger to stroke the baby’s forehead. “I…don’t know what to say. I’m sorry I missed it all, man. So sorry.”
Sean shook his head and clapped a big hand to Klaus’s shoulder. “You did what you needed to do. Don’t think on it again. You’re here now and that’s what counts.”
Strange how it went with pack family. With just those words, the air was cleared and it was like no time at all had passed.
“He’s a big fella, huh?” he said, grinning as little Ivan cooed and blew bubbles with his rosebud lips.
Rachael laughed and gave him a tired but electric smile as she presented baby number two, a clone of the first. “And here is your namesake. I suppose I don’t have to tell you, he’s the troublemaker.”
“Doesn’t surprise me at all.” He leaned in to kiss Rachael’s cheek, and then stood aside, urging them into the house. “What are we doing standing out here, come on. We’re waiting on Petra and then we can start.”
“Well, you don’t have long to wait,” a low voice said from behind Rachael, making the hair’s on the back of his neck stand up. “I’m here. I apologize for being late, I had to make sure the restaurant was taken care of.”
Rachael and Sean each gave Petra a hug in turn, and she ooh–ed and ah–ed over the babies, notably ignoring him entirely.
That was fair. Had he known he wasn’t going to get back to Caroline’s after talking with his father, he would’ve left a note, but by the time they’d spoken and had gotten the wheels in motion for this evening, there hadn’t been time to go back.
It made for a hopping mad Petra, which was all right by him. She’d come. That was half the battle. Now if only he could get through the wall of anger she was practically vibrating with, maybe he’d have a chance in hell…
You don’t deserve one, the little voice inside his head reminded him.
And still, this time, he wasn’t going down without a fight.
***
“Everyone is here now, let the meeting come to order.”
The alpha’s voice rang through the large, cedar–planked room like a whip, and all chatter ceased. Niles had an easy smile and a bear–like visage that made him seem almost sweet, but he was a leader through and through. Wise, smart and fair in most things, he was as well–loved as he was liked, but today, Petra wanted to rail at him. Beat on his chest and tell him how his outdated values had destroyed her.
Instead, the sensation that built in her chest every time she was in his presence did so now as she looked at him. He was the pack alpha and when he talked, they listened.
“First, let’s all welcome Nicklaus back home to Stone Creek.”
The room broke out in applause and whistles, and Klaus gave them a stiff smile. She could feel his eyes on her, but refused to give into the urge to meet his gaze.
“It’s been a long road to today, but I’m thrilled to announce that, on Christmas Day, he will not only be taking over the role of alpha, he’s also come to his senses and will finally be taking a mate.”
The hoots and hollers grew louder as Petra’s world shattered. Despair washed over her fury like a bucket of ice water and it disappeared in a puff of steam, leaving behind only agony. She couldn’t stay here. Not at the house. Not in Stone Creek. Hell, not even in Montana. Not if it meant she had to even think about Klaus in the same state with his new wife.
She pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle the sob working its way out, and wheeled around toward the door, desperate for escape. Good old, fair Niles had just cost her her family now. Hadn’t she lost enough?
“Petra, can you come join us in the center of the room, please?” Niles called.
She froze, mid–step, the desire to run almost as strong as the pull of her wolf. The instinct to obey was strong, and the harder she fought it, the harder he pressed. It was like her feet were stuck in quicksand.
“She’s a tough one, I’ll tell you that,” Niles said with a chuckle.
Her feet moved then as she spun to face him. “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she shouted, tears streaming down her face now. She didn’t care anymore. Let them see. “Do you think this is funny? Screwing with people’s lives?”
The collective gasp of the room at large gave her an evil jolt of satisfaction. At least she was going out in a blaze of fuuuuck you.
“Petra…”
Klaus stepped toward her, hand extended and she jumped back a foot like he’d been wielding a knife. And he might as well have been. It couldn’t hurt her more than his touch right now.
“And you. You let him call me here to witness this?” She met his gaze then, and what she saw there nearly rent her in two. He looked contrite. And sad.
Because he pities you.
“I let him call you here because I love you.” He stepped toward her again, and this time she didn’t back away. “I have always loved you.” His dark eyes were sincere but his words didn’t make sense.
“What are you talking about?” She looked at father and then son, and back again, confusion warring with grief. Was this some kind of sick joke? “You don’t love me. You’re marrying someone else.”
“No.” He shook his head slowly and took her trembling hand in his. “I’m marrying you. That is, if you’ll have me. That’s what we’ve been discussing all day. How to explain to the families of my original, potential mates without starting a war now that my father has given us his blessing.”
He was serious. The blood rushed to her ears as she tried to make sense of it all. Klaus would never be so cruel as to toy with her this way. But how could this be?
“So now you want me?” The deepest part of her cried out, begging her mouth to stop. To take what she was being offered with both hands and run. Having Klaus this way was better than not having him at all. She was going to ruin everything with her stupid mouth if she didn’t shut it.
And still…
“Your father decides I’m a suitable mate now, and if you marry me, you will be alpha. So now you’re willin
g to stand by me? What about when it was hard, Klaus?” She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in her throat. “Where were you then? I’ll tell you where.” The anger that had gone came back in a rush, tenfold. “Aruba. While I was crying my eyes out for the better part of a year, feeling like the best half of me was ripped out, guts and all, you were on the god damn beach somewhere soaking up the rays and living the good life.”
“Is that what you think?” He paused and looked around the room, gaze flickering to each of their packmates in turn. “Is that what any of you think?”
The low mumbles were incoherent but the meaning behind them was clear. He’d been gone for three years. No one knew what to think.
“I would try to tell you the truth of it, but words are cheap,” he said softly. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, gripping her hand tighter in his.
Instantly, she could feel the tap against her psyche. Heart in her throat, she let him in. There was no hesitance. No pussyfooting around or gentle melding of minds. His thoughts assaulted hers, running over her own feelings and consciousness, replacing it with his own.
Pain stabbed at her insides like a hot poker. Loneliness, despair. She closed her eyes and gripped the back of the sofa for purchase as memories––Klaus’s memories––flitted through her mind like a movie she’d never seen. There were beaches, yes, but the frolicking was nowhere to be found. There was a lot of drinking and rage and sadness. Self–recrimination and regret. There was Ivan, and his mother, there was the last talk he’d had with Niles before he’d left for good.
“I love her, but I won’t make her choose. The pack means everything to her.”
“I would have chosen you,” she whispered brokenly to the Klaus that stood before her now, sending the message with her heart as well as her head. “It’s always been you.”
And the last memory. From today.
“If you can’t accept my choice for a mate, then this visit will be a short one. If Petra will leave with me, we’ll be gone tomorrow.”
He hadn’t waited for his father’s blessing. He’d demanded it.
She trained her gaze on Niles. “Why now? If you were willing to look past the old ways, why didn’t you give us your blessing three years ago?”
“Klaus wasn’t ready,” Niles said gently. His shrugged his wide shoulders, his eyes filling with pain. “I was a broken man when Ivan died. And so was Klaus. He wasn’t strong enough emotionally after the blow of losing his brother to stand up to me. How could he be strong enough to stand up to anyone else as alpha? We would be dealing with anger over the broken treaties with the other packs over your marriage. Tensions would be high. We’d have been sitting ducks, ripe for the picking. Any rogue male could’ve come in and taken over.” He suddenly looked far older than his sixty years. “I know it seems cruel, and I’m sorry that I caused you pain, but believe me, the pain was shared equally. I’d lost one son, and I chased off the other.”
She wanted to stay angry. To resent all the lost time and the tears, but his sadness was so apparent, it was impossible not to feel it.
“Every so often, I’d reach out. See if he was healing. See if he was ready to come home to me.” He inclined his shaggy head toward her. “And to you. But he wasn’t. Until now.”
Klaus circled her wrist with his fingers and pulled her to face him. “I’m not going to say I agree with his methods, but I understand them. If you can’t forgive him and still want to leave, I’m with you.” His expression was solemn as he gently stroked the skin of her wrist. “You’re my true mate, and I will follow you to the ends of the earth if you let me. But if you want to stay, we’re welcome here. Say the word.”
How this day had changed so quickly. She was still dizzy with it. Klaus not only loved her, he wanted to marry her and have her at his side as he led his pack.
Their pack.
The answer came to her, sure and true as the North Star.
“I don’t want to leave.” She looked around the room at the rapt observers, who were all grinning big, stupid grins. “This is my family. You’re my mate. And I love you, Nicklaus Maslov.” She dove into his arms then, letting the joy wash over her like warm summer rain.
When his lips met hers, their packmates howled in delight. Even the babies joined in.
Klaus pulled her closer, pressing her soft body into his hard one, and she melted against him. She had it all. Her restaurant, her love and her pack.
This…this would be a Christmas to remember.
The End
About the Author
Sign up for Chloe Cole’s mailing list to get early excerpts and release dates! Want more of the Montana Wolves? Check out Prey (Montana Wolves, Book One).
Home for the Howlidays © Copyright 2014 Chloe Cole
Everlastingly
Michelle M. Pillow
On the run from her attackers and battered by a winter storm, Maura O’Brian battles her way through the snow, desperate and alone. She stumbles upon what she believes to be a secluded, abandoned farmhouse where strange voices are be more frightful than what awaits outside. The signs keep pointing to the same person–Jack. His very name fills her heart with such intense longing she’ll do anything to find him.
Is Jack real or simply her fevered imagination hoping for a holiday miracle?
Chapter One
Snow was pretty until you were forced to run through drifts of it in heels and pantyhose. Maura couldn’t feel the frozen blocks of her feet, but she forced them to keep going. Wet purple satin offered little protection. When she’d put on the gown that night she’d never dreamed the sleeveless decision would become one of the worst of her life. The party dress was meant to be fun and festive, not protect her from the elements. Though the knee–length skirt allowed her legs to move under a bulk of satin, gossamer and ribbons, it offered too little in the way of protection.
The trail she set through the untouched white was easy to follow, but there was no escaping it. For this reason she had to push onward. If she stopped, they’d find her. If she stopped, she’d freeze to death.
“Keep moving, keep moving,” her brain repeated, an endless mantra pushing her legs on.
A whimper passed over her lips in a puff. This couldn’t be happening. Not this. Not her. Not this.
Maura begged an unseen force in the universe to let her wake up, to make this a dream. She yearned for her parents, the police, a park ranger–anyone who could get her out of the cold. At first she’d just ran, as hard and fast as she could. The full moon revealed the bleakness of the Kansas landscape, the flat snowy field only broken up by lines of trees planted during the Great Depression to act like a wind block that would stop another dust bowl from choking the land.
Her father had told her that. It’s why so many fields were lined with trees. These types of fields meant farmers. That meant farmhouses. Help.
She trudged on in mindless purpose. Deliverance from her icy hell came by way of a tiny light in the distance. She aimed for it, glancing back to see if she was being followed. Her eyes were so cold she couldn’t be sure if they were figures in the darkness or protrusions in the landscape.
The light gave her hope and she pushed as hard as she could, running on adrenaline and fear. Soon the shape of a single window formed in the night, then the moonlit outline of an old house. Maura stumbled and fell against a wooden fence outlining the property. It took everything she had to lift her foot and launch her body over. She fell to the frozen earth and looked toward salvation. The front door creaked open bringing with it a streak of blinking interior light.
“Help,” she whispered, trying to crawl before collapsing to the ground.
***
The blare of a trumpet greeted Maura as she opened her eyes. Gasping, she flounced around on a musty bed, fighting before she could properly see that no one was attacking her. She took a deep breath and then another, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. A lantern cast light over the dusty room. Wallpaper curled along the bottom edge of the wall
, exposing the old lath and plaster beneath. Tarnished mirrors and tattered curtains decorated the room, as if they had been forgotten and left to rot. An old skeleton key hung on a nail by a faded green ribbon, though there didn’t appear to be any locks for it to fit into.
Fat snowflakes flurried past the window, lit only by the lantern light. Pulling the covers off her body, Maura noted her strapless purple gown had dried. Her pantyhose had been snagged and her shoes were missing. A radiant heater warmed the thick wood planks of the floor. She crossed to the glass pane, unable to see past the heavy snowfall into the dark beyond.
The people in the farmhouse must have brought her inside. Was she safe here? It was warm and she was alive. They’d put her into a bed. For now that would have to do.
Maura stumbled away from the window, feeling out of sorts. Her tarnished reflection stared back from the mirror. Brunette locks framed her face in a mess of large curls. The paleness of her skin reminded her of how close to death she had come outside in the elements. Redness rimmed her brown eyes, and she remembered the bitter cold against her face. Undoubtedly she’d be sick later and she was a little surprised a fever hadn’t already set in. Though, now that she thought about it, she did feel strange. A dull ache settled over her, not necessarily painful, just a constant awareness.
She went for the door, but realized there wasn’t one. Panicking, she ran to the wall and smoothed her hands over the old paper. She pushed at the diamond patterns to feel underneath. She lifted the mirror away from the wall, bumped her hip against the radiant heater, and pushed on the nail holding the skeleton key. There had been a way in, so there had to be a way out.
The window! She could crawl out the window. But go where? Out to where her attackers waited? Barefoot into the snow to die of hypothermia? Or stay inside where she was trapped, but at least warm. Someone let her in, saved her, they would surely check on her soon. They wouldn’t leave her here to die. The solution was probably so amazingly simple and she was too tired from her ordeal to figure it out.
