Claimed by the Wolf (3 page)

But hiding it didn’t change the truth of the matter.

She dealt in facts, not “would have” or “could have.”

It was what she deserved for poking through another’s private thoughts. He didn’t allow her inside because he had some unexplainable drive to join with her, it was simply because she’d asked him to trust her.

Beth
,
if you’re going to look
,
you should see everything
, he said through their link.

She didn’t want to, and she scrambled for a way to close their connection, but it was too late. Memories kept slamming into her like a wrecking ball, familiar, but foreign—just like their cabin had been. They were his memories of her, his perceptions.

Burning in the fire of your hair
...

Beth saw herself as she’d been the night of the raid, splayed out before him. That wasn’t a view she’d ever wanted, but seeing herself through his eyes was something altogether different. She was...
beautiful.

To him.

His want of her had been real enough—his desire.

Sensation shot through her, stabs of lust twisting through her body, and she experienced what he had. Her tight sheath around him, her sounds of pleasure, the weight of her breasts in his hands—it was all so decadent and just a little bit debauched.

She loved it.

I
think about that all the time
,
Beth.

Her body responded, nipples tight and beaded beneath her T-shirt, heart rate skyrocketing as she thought about doing those things with him again.

Even with the collar on, she thought about sinking her teeth into his shoulder, marking him. She tried to push the thought out of her head, but it was as ingrained in the sex act as kissing. Or it would be until she finished the mating ritual.

She couldn’t risk infecting him, even if by some chance he would allow it. He’d given her those bad memories, too—what had happened in the woods when he’d chased the beast that had killed his mother. Beth didn’t want those, didn’t want to feel that terror.

But maybe she owed it to him to look.

A telltale beeping told her that they were monitoring the pheromones in the room. As if they were animals who would couple in plain view for anyone to see.

Her beast liked that idea. It growled in her head with satisfaction. Let them look, let them see her take her mate and mark him as her own. The collar around her neck loosened just as the scent of poppies and a red fog filled the air.

The beast didn’t like the smell and couldn’t see through the fog. In fact, there was something about the fog that made the beast rage. It welled up out of her, the wolf’s venom filling her veins and splitting through her skin until there was nothing left of Beth, only the animal.

And a hunger that could only be sated with flesh.

Chapter Five

No word existed in any language Stefan knew to describe exactly the profanity he wished to utter. Dread knotted in Stefan’s stomach as he watched the change overtake her. It was no natural thing.

When he’d watched her transform before, it had been a smooth series of motions like flexing a muscle—a bird spreading its wings. This was like slicing into the bird and pulling out its bones. Muscles convulsed and shifted, caught somewhere between human and beast. Just like the zombie beasts and the virus.

“Surrender to it, Beth. Let it happen so it doesn’t hurt.” Stefan knew she fought it for him and it was tearing her apart inside and out. She didn’t need any more pain—not because of him. He’d already hurt her enough.

“You shouldn’t be so quick to encourage her, Gypsy trash.” The voice came over the intercom and a small table emerged from the floor of the terrarium offering up an array of silver blades. “She’ll rip you open. Unless you rip out her heart and cut off her head. Your mother couldn’t do it. Can you?”

The sound of a woman screaming was piped in like elevator music, and this seemed to enrage the beast further. It snarled and slavered, jaws snapping at him even before it lunged.

No, not
it
, a small voice in his head reminded him. This was still Beth. She’d already proven she was the same person no matter what her skin looked like. This wasn’t her fault, and even though he deserved all of her rage, she’d never do this on her own.

The killer in him reached for the silver blades before he could think better of it, and he’d already armed himself when she roared.

Stefan knew he’d have to make a choice.

Even if her bite didn’t kill him, it would change things between them. It could infect him. It would bind them forever.

He had more than just himself to think about. He was going to be an Adam. His people depended on him.

None of his options were acceptable.

She sprang, her powerful legs propelling her through the air toward her prey. Stefan leaped and found himself with his back against a wall. Close quarters made it hard to evade her, but it was designed that way.

The screaming kept pounding at his temples, digging around inside of him from some thread of fear, something to drag to the forefront and make him weak, but he refused. The beast he’d faced in the woods hadn’t been mindless and ravenous like Beth was now. He’d been thinking, sentient, and all the more awful for it.

Beth loved him.

He knew she was still inside even if she wasn’t the one in control.

She pounced again and he was able to leap over her back to land behind her. He remembered that first night when she’d put herself between him and the other werewolves. The animal wouldn’t hurt him either—if it knew what it was doing. It’d been her beast that sought to protect him and mark him, not hurt him.

That knowledge was contradictory to everything he knew to be true. To everything he’d been taught and everything he’d lived his life for.

Everything he was ready to die for.

But the answer that kept repeating over and over in his head, louder than the piped-in screaming, louder than the denial his brain kept firing off like a cannon was:
it’s Beth.

It came from a place deeper and stronger than his logical mind, something that was irrefutable as a mountain of stone.

The thing that spoke to him was his heart.

He dropped the silver.

“You should really pick those back up,” the faceless voice warned.

Stefan wasn’t going to tell them the silver wouldn’t do any good anyway, that the infected, or at least Beth, was immune to silver.

“Beth,” he spoke quietly.

The beast roared, her eyes empty, glittering pools.

Beth.
He reached out across their mind link.

She didn’t answer in words, but images. Horrible, slow-motion pictures of her tearing into his flesh followed by the equally horrible vistas of what he had to do to ensure that didn’t happen.

The worst of it, though, was the warmth that filled him afterward—her approval and acceptance of her fate.

She couldn’t stop.

Beth lunged again, and again he dodged her.

He tried again, this time pushing the memory of his mother to the forefront—the boy he’d been. Stefan knew Beth empathized with his trauma, but what about the animal? He had to try.

She snarled, but her eyes widened, and for a moment he saw Beth’s humanity in her eyes. A strangled sound was torn from her and she turned away from him to attack the glass. She ran full force at the magically enforced glass and knocked herself down, only to get back up and ram it again and again.

The red smoke filled the air again.

Her blows were affecting the structural integrity of their enclosure, and he wanted to encourage her to keep doing it, but he didn’t want to shatter the tenuous hold she had on control.

Until he saw what it did to her.

Even as the glass showed a single centimeter of a shuddering crack, blood ran down from her muzzle. The collar tightened and jolted her over and over again, but she didn’t stop.

More images flooded him. Of the collar tightening until it tore into her throat. But it wouldn’t take her head off, and she’d heal. Sans collar.

Her pain suddenly gripped him as if it were his own, and after that single second of agony, he wished it was.

But she didn’t stop.

Pride at her strength, her determination and her courage welled within him. He wanted to take all of that from her. It was his place to suffer for her, not hers for him.

He was a prince and soon to be Alpha of Alphas. It was his right and his duty to bear this for her.

Stefan knew what he had to do.

This time, fear did claw out of his gut with sharp talons. It tore up his insides, scoring along his bones.

He’d faced the werewolf that had done this to his mother, and he’d been prepared to die. What he hadn’t been prepared for was to live—infected.

Hatred for the beast welled, but he didn’t hate
her.
He could never hate her. The only way to save them both was to surrender to the beast and this draw that was still between them.

Stefan placed himself between Beth and the glass wall.

She slammed into him, her might crushing him against the surface, but he didn’t push her away—instead he dragged her closer.

“I am Prince Stefan Zolinski of the Gypsy and I take Bethany Andreas as my mate and my princess for now and always,” he declared.

He turned his head to the side to expose his neck and shoulder for her jaws.

It was no easy work—her teeth ripped into him, but he didn’t let go. A sound of agony was torn from him as she ripped through ligament and muscle to find bone.

Mate?
Her soft voice echoed in his head.

Yes
, he agreed, and it was true. There was something so right about what had just happened between them. The claiming was violent and bloody, but it was truth. As if there’d been a piece of him missing and her bite had made him whole. He belonged to her and she to him. Wholly, utterly and eternally.

Oh
,
God
,
what have I
—

Mate
, he reiterated.

Her collar snapped and fell to the floor, just as the binding cuffs around his wrists did. Lightning crackled within the small room, bouncing off of every surface with him as its centrifuge. The wound in his neck knitted itself together with ease.

Power filled him. Where once he sought it out, now it came to him, clung to his every cell. It infused him and crackled through his veins. While the memory bond with Beth had been intense, this was a thousand times more brutal. He knew where each one of his people were, what they experienced; he could find them anywhere in the world. Vision upon vision of the world, of history, struck through his awareness again and again from when the first of them had clawed their way out from the Abyss to this very moment.

Ancient magic filled him, and along with it came terrible knowledge.

“I am Prince no longer, but King. I am Adam. I am Alpha of Alphas and you have no right to hold me. Suffer what you have made.” The timbre and power that thrummed through his decree caused the glass to spray outward in a sharp fountain.

He stepped forward, his mate at his side.

“And know Gypsy vengeance.”

Chapter Six

They left the facility in flames behind them and no one alive to tell the story.

Stefan cast a spell that judged the evildoers, and they’d all paid with their lives. Beth and her beast both felt a certain peace with that outcome. Those people could never hurt anyone again.

Walking through the foliage and forest as they tried to orient themselves and figure out their location, Beth’s mind wandered. What had happened to them made her think of her own involvement with the Aeternali and how they’d experimented on the infected wolves. She’d like to think they were kinder and more humane to their test subjects, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Stop it, Beth. You were trying to find a cure. They were trying to make a weapon. There’s a difference.”

“Did you know what I was thinking because you looked?” she asked, looking up at him.

“I don’t have to look. I know you.”

The sun haloed around him and she couldn’t help but admire him. The glossy sheen to his midnight hair, his hard profile, wide shoulders—how had she ever believed he was an accountant? The man before her was meant to lead.

Then her eyes settled on the scar at his neck. She had only vague recall of what had happened when she’d bitten him. Beth had come back to herself with the sweet copper tang of his blood on her tongue and pain shooting through every nerve ending. How he didn’t hate her, or even fear her, she couldn’t fathom it.

“Don’t do that either.” He stopped and turned to her, tilting her face up and forcing her to look him in the eye. “
I
claimed
you
, Beth.”

“I hurt you.”

“Honestly?” He arched a brow. “It was just a love bite. I liked it.” He brushed off her concern.

“That’s one hell of a hickey.” Bitterness tinged her tone.

“Don’t mistake me—you didn’t force my hand. All of my actions were my own. We’re mated now. I don’t know what that means for us except there’s no going back. There’s only forward.”

“What about your people? You lead men who
kill
my kind.”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to deal with these things as they come. Right now, we have to figure out where we are—not emotionally or metaphysically, but here and now.”

She noticed he hadn’t said he wouldn’t kill her people anymore, or that his views on werewolves had changed. Only that they would figure things out. That was Stefan code for “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Beth knew she should be grateful for what they had. They’d escaped with their lives, they’d punished those who’d wronged them and they were together. He’d claimed her as his mate and she’d claimed him. The rings, the plans with dresses and bridesmaids and a piece of paper with their names on it paled in comparison to what that meant.

A smirk curled at the corner of his mouth and Beth imagined nipping at his lip. “No, woman. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk about it. It means what it means.”

“Stop digging in my brain.”

“Stop thinking so loud.”

“Stop smirking or I’m going to bite you again,” she tossed back.

“Bring it on!” he dared, dark eyes glittering with sensual promise.

“I don’t think anything will be able to measure up to the end-of-the-world sex we had at Blue Ridge.”

“Is that a challenge?” His eyes narrowed, but sparkled with sensual promise.

“More like a dare.” Was this man really hers? She wanted him to be. Even though he’d lied to her, there was something more between them that was one hundred percent real.

“Never let it be said I failed to impress my queen. We don’t need to figure out where we are because we can go anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” She arched a brow. Grand locations ran through her head. Venice. Monte Carlo. Bora Bora. But she didn’t want any of those. She wanted to know him. Where he came from, his people. “Where did you grow up?”

“In a
vardo
that was part of a magical caravan that traveled in a mist across the world. My favorite places were in the dark forests of Germany.”

“You mentioned a
vardo
before. What is it? I want to go there.”

Mists gathered around them thick and heavy, smelling of him—cedar and bergamot. It tingled her fingers, her toes, and wrapped around her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, and then it was gone as soon as it had come.

Their surroundings changed. Instead of thick vegetation, they were in a clearing next to an impossibly blue river. Beyond the clearing was a forest, but it was unlike any she’d ever seen. It was dark, heavy—powerful. She didn’t know how a forest could seem wise, but this one did. She felt young and small next to its greatness.

A small, intricately decorated wagon was parked on the riverbank. Brightly colored, with hundreds of different animal carvings, it was a work of art. The inside was just as lush with decadent fabrics, pillows and paint. For all of its splendor, it was cozy and welcoming.

“This is how you grew up?” No wonder he hadn’t cared that she’d chosen orange for their wedding.

“More or less. Only there were thirty more of these wagons. Large fires, music and dancing late into the night. All while our soldiers stood at the perimeter watching for death in the fog.”

“Werewolves?” Her voice was soft.

“Among other things. Vampires. Harpies. Gargoyles. Things that loved to feed on Gypsy blood. Sometimes humans would wander into our camps. Sometimes they would drink our wine and forget the world outside the mist and stay with us.”

“I probably would,” she confessed.

“Would you? Would you stay here with me forever, knowing what the Aeternali is doing?”

It wasn’t an accusation, but it flipped a switch. “No, I don’t suppose I would.” No matter what happened between them, the Aeternali couldn’t be allowed to continue on as it had.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t rest here awhile before we face the world and everything in it.”

His lips slanted over hers.

She twined her arms around his neck and melted against him, nipping at the edge of his lip just as she’d longed to do. Beth wanted to kiss him forever, taste his lips until she could taste nothing but him.

He dragged his mouth away from hers. “In case you didn’t know, this isn’t fucking.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, breathless.

“Loving.”

His kiss was reverent, but still hot and passionate. That second before his lips collided with hers was filled with possibility, with hope. Then it exploded into starbursts when they touched.

He was patient and steady, every caress designed with one purpose in mind—to please her. Stefan cupped her jaw with his palm, his fingers around the back of her neck positioning her for his kisses. His thumb stroked down over her collarbone, his hand exploring the delicate line of her throat.

So gentle, but it sparked the flint of desire over and over again.

His mouth followed, first kissing the corner of her mouth, then the edge of her jaw, down to the pulse in her neck. He pulled his shirt from her with practiced ease, leaving her bare to his ministrations, but he didn’t touch her breasts or work his talented fingers between her thighs.

He continued to pet her, caress her, like he was mapping her skin and had to explore every inch. When his lips met her collarbone, his hands were ghosting down her arms, her sides and her back.

“Like silk, woman.” Stefan kissed the valley between her breasts and knelt to do the same to her flat belly. He rested his cheek against her, his arms wrapped around her hips.

Beth pushed her fingers through his hair, feeling at odds with herself. The fire that burned in her threatened to incinerate her from the inside out, but this moment of tenderness was an unexpected treasure.

His journey continued, fingers moving to ghost down her thighs, the backs of her legs, even her ankles. His mouth made contact with her hip, but this time his tongue darted out to trace a teasing design on her skin.

Stefan cupped her ass and kneaded the flesh before abandoning the task to slide his hands back up her spine, and then he took her mouth again. Every nerve ending clamored for more, and even when he gave it, it wasn’t enough.

“Stefan,” she pleaded, trembling.

He drew her closer, pressed her tight against him, but continued the carnal assault. Her sensitive breasts were crushed against the width of his chest, the hard length of his swollen cock restrained by his fatigues but pressed against her belly.

Sharp stabs of lust pierced her and she wanted him inside her, but he seemed content to keep ratcheting her need higher. Beth clung to him, and raised her leg around his waist so she could rub herself against him. The contrast of the fabric of his fatigues gave her a taste of the friction she sought.

Stefan gripped her thighs and helped her swing her other leg around his waist. He kept kissing her, his tongue mingling with hers. His muscles rippled under her hands and flexed to hold her up, but it was no great tax on his strength.

She rolled her hips, seeking more and more stimulation.

He carried her to the
vardo
and lay her down among silk and velvet.

“I always imagined you like this, Beth. Spread for me on this bed, your hair like a fan of flames behind you and your skin like sweet cream in the sunlight.”

His words were like a caress, sliding up between her thighs and licking at her softness.

He kissed her again slowly, his hard ridge grinding against her heat. This time when Stefan descended her body, he sucked her pebbled nipple into the hot cavern of his mouth, his tongue working the bud, while his hand worked the other—plucking at the tender flesh and playing her body for every pleasurable note she was capable of.

Beth was so sensitive, she didn’t think she could take any more, but couldn’t stand it if he stopped either. Not only because she didn’t want to be the first to bend, but because she’d never experienced anything like it.

He switched, her breasts aching and tight from his ministrations but primed for more. He suckled and nipped, winding her need tighter. She continued to buck against him and made sounds that seemed so desperately wanton, but she didn’t care.

Finally, he descended farther.

Beth was afraid that if he touched her again, she’d shatter—her whole body would explode in a single burst.

The first touch of his mouth to her cleft was as equally slow and meticulous as it had been on her lips. With precise pressure, he laved her sensitized and swollen flesh, and then thrust his tongue inside her only to drag it up around her clit. He suckled it with the same measured intent as he’d done with each of her nipples.

Slow, steady, torturous bliss.

Stefan guided her where he wanted her, using her hips to lift her closer to his demanding mouth. She thrashed and cried out. Her hands fisted around the silk sheets as she bucked up to meet his caresses.

She crashed over the edge like a hurricane with a howl that shattered the windows of the
vardo
, but Stefan still didn’t stop. Not until she bucked against his mouth and everything inside her was filled with bursts of bright ecstasy and she felt the aftershocks of her orgasm all the way in the soles of her feet like blasts of a thudding heartbeat.

Still, he wasn’t done with her.

Quivering and trembling, eyes half-closed from bliss, he guided her legs to wrap around his hips and drove his cock into her still-pulsing sheath.

She cried out again as he hit the core of her, and she clawed at his back—begging both for more and a surcease of sensation, but he was relentless. His hips pistoned like a perfect machine, drilling into her.

The bliss wound tight again, shoving her forward toward the edge. Beth wasn’t ready to go and she didn’t want to go alone.

She scraped her teeth along the healed scar where she’d marked him, and a low sound was torn from him.

It was sensitive.

“Do it,” he commanded.

Beth didn’t question him. Instead, she bit him with her human teeth. His mouth found her neck and he bit her back—sending them both skyrocketing to orgasm.

Afterward, she lay in his arms—wrecked. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she loved him. They’d said it before. They said it all the time.

Even though they were mated, even though they were forever, it was still different now. It didn’t seem right to say, not only because it didn’t feel like enough, it didn’t feel like it was something he wanted to hear.

What they’d just done he’d said was loving. It was incredible, to be sure, but she couldn’t forget how he’d looked into her eyes and whispered “I love you” with the utmost conviction and sincerity while she’d been nothing more than an asset.

It was possible she was simply an asset now. Whatever had happened between them had been the catalyst for his ascension. Beth reminded herself yet again to be happy with what she did have. The past was in the past and it was nothing more than an anchor. She couldn’t live in the present or move toward the future if she was always looking back. She knew that.

Beth still couldn’t help herself.

“Next time, let’s use the mind link. I want to feel what you feel.”

She gave an awkward laugh. “I don’t think that you do.”

“Why not?” He propped himself on his elbow. “Did I do something you didn’t like? You came really hard.”

“No, it was amazing.”

“But?”

“But nothing. Why do you want to use the mind link? Don’t I get you off well enough?” She tried to deflect from her earlier statement.

“Sweetheart, you’re perfect.” He grazed his lips over hers and she tasted herself, sending another jolt of desire through her.

She crossed her legs. Beth didn’t think she could handle another round, but the beast wanted her to try. It was attention-hungry and loved his hands on her body.

“I’m surprised you didn’t suggest it first. It’ll be a power trip. You’ll be able to see all the things I do to thwart you when you try to make me come before I’m ready.”

“And you’ll see the same.”

He flashed a wicked grin. “We’ll both have to come up with new strategies.”

She thanked the heavens for her regenerative powers. Before her infection, she would’ve been done for the night, but she suspected they both had more staying power now.