Alcaeus
I was desperate to hold onto some measure of calm. The gurgle of her stomach beneath my palm gave me the excuse I needed to smile in that moment when she started giggling in reaction.
Hers was a nervous laugh that caused more sadness and regret to well up in me at first. But then I saw the true laughter in her brown eyes staring up at me, and an overwhelming sense of pride and gratitude for the fact that she was okay—that she had survived everything that she’d been through in her life up to this point and that she was with me now—overcame me.
She was with me now.
She was whole and perfect. And no one would ever be able to harm her again. I would make certain of it.
But she had been hurt in the past. Damaged. She didn’t trust me yet. I’d have to be patient with her tendency to lie so easily to me until I earned her trust.
“Are you hungry?” Dumb question.
“Starved,” she confirmed, her eyes flashing with such excitement that God help me, my dick got hard.
Pushing visions of my cock in her mouth from my mind, I offered her a hand up off the bed and led her to the adjacent living room of the hotel suite, where there was a small dining table and two service carts brimming with food.
“I ordered everything on the menu that I thought you might like from the restaurants downstairs. I got a selection of breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods.”
“Wow.” She inhaled deeply, eyeing the carts, and moaned. “I think I love you.”
Ah, shit. I wasn’t going to make it much longer without being inside her again.
I adjusted the bulge in my slacks as she rushed forward to investigate the food, lifting plate covers and taking sample bites as she went, before piling more food than she could possibly fit into her tiny stomach onto a dining plate for herself. When she paused to twist her long black hair into a knot at the back of her head to keep it from getting in the way of her eating, I knew I was going to live happily ever after with this woman.
I pulled up a chair so I could sit and watch her. And so the bulge in my pants would be less obvious and uncomfortable.
The sounds of ecstasy that she made while she ate would’ve tempted a saint. The way her eyes rolled back in her head and she licked her fingers and got all into it kept my mind firmly relegated to the gutter.
“Did you really set Clifton’s community ablaze?” I asked, simply in the hope of steering my brain away from the fantasy it’d just latched onto of eating her out atop the dining table. I already knew from the memories I’d collected from Clifton and Zeke’s minds that she had, in fact, torched it.
“I don’t recall,” she answered from behind the cover of her hand as she chewed.
Hearing the same answer she’d given me the night before—right in front of her accusers—made me chuckle to myself all over again as I watched her attack a sausage link with her fork. It was all I could do to keep my hands from reaching for her and pulling her onto my lap.
“That’s a yes,” Kai interjected. “Your ‘mate’ is quite the seasoned criminal, as a matter of fact. She got an early start at it. You should read her juvenile records.”
Her fork slipped and clattered against her plate, but she picked it up and replied casually, “Dr. Kai’s just jealous. Thinks I’m your Yoko. He confessed in the car last night how worried he is that I’m gonna break up your touring werelock band.” She shot a side-eye glare at him that promised pain. “Right before he stabbed me with a hypodermic syringe.”
My smile faded at the last part, and I leveled a censorious glare of my own at my Beta. I never should’ve left her alone with Kai. I wouldn’t be doing it again after what he’d just pulled with chaining her to the bed.
“I’m very sorry about that, Cynthia. It won’t happen again, I promise.” I hated calling her Cynthia, but it would have to do until she felt comfortable revealing her real name to me.
I couldn’t fault her for being wary based on how those werewolves in Clifton’s pack had mistreated her. They’d deserved every bit of the damage she’d done to their property years ago and much more, as far as I was concerned.
My mate had accomplished the unthinkable and survived the unsurvivable in her short life: She’d suffered a rogue werewolf attack while she’d been a fragile human! And then she’d apparently survived her initial werewolf transformation unassisted as well—a feat that historically had been nothing short of impossible. The fact that she was alive at all was a testament to how miraculous she was.
My blood seethed at the knowledge that the first pack my mate had looked to for acceptance and guidance as an innocent new wolf had dared to label her an abomination and had openly persecuted her for her astonishing survival. I’d had zero qualms about the retribution I’d dealt the Highlands Ranch pack last night.
“Are you always this apologetic and hospitable to the women you drug and abduct?”
“Huh? Never. I mean, no, I don’t drug and abduct women. You’re the first.” Christ, I was an idiot. It wasn’t helping that all the blood in my body settled just below my belt whenever I was near her.
She giggled. “Am I the first because I bit you? Sorry ’bout that, by the way. Dr. Kai says it’s going to heal just fine, though.”
My eyes cut to Kai, who was pretending to be busy on his laptop. How dare he feed her that lie?
“Dr. Kai is mistaken,” I told her carefully, watching closely to gauge her reaction. “You marked me. Permanently. There’s no question of it. And no reversing it.”
She paused in chewing as her body froze—her fork suspended midair on its way to her mouth.
“Do you know what it means to mark another werewolf?”
Slowly, she shook her head. Foregoing the bite of food on her raised fork, she set it down and reached for her glass of water instead.
“Werewolves mark their mates with a special bite that is permanent. One that will leave a definitive scar, regardless of any supernatural healing abilities.”
She set her water glass down and reached for the pot of coffee on the table.
“There’s a unique venom that’s released from our fangs when we will it—one that is different from the normal venom we release to attack or turn prey. Traditionally, it happens during moments of peak arousal, because the special venom that’s required to mark a mate gets released when our inner animal feels profoundly stirred to bind another to us forever.”
“One caveat,” Kai inserted, “is the recipient of the marking must be in a sufficient state of arousal, and therefore receptive to the one delivering the bite, in order for the mark to take.”
Her hands shook as she raised the cup of black coffee she’d just poured for herself to her lips and took a sip. “Interesting,” she muttered dazedly. “Must’ve skipped the day they covered that one in werewolf parochial school.”
Shit. She was completely shell-shocked.
I leaned forward, closer to her, resting my elbows on my knees. “Honey, I know you grew up as a human, and that this is all new for you. But I promise, everything’s going to be fine. I’m not going to force you to do anything, or push feelings or relationship demands on you before you’re ready.”
“It just seems so weird,” she said after a pause, staring blankly at a spot on the table. “Weird that no one’s ever bitten you before me.” Her brown eyes lifted to mine. “Exactly how old are you? Is there something wrong with you that I should know about?”
“Ha!” Kai barked out a laugh and mumbled, “Where to start?”
I choked and coughed amid the sudden fit of humor that overcame me as well, before answering, “I was born in 1604. I’ll be four hundred nineteen years old in about four months—on November twelfth. There are a lot of things wrong with me that you should probably know about, but I’d prefer it if we took this one step at a time and let you get to know me and figure them out as we go along, if that’s all right?”
I gave her what I hoped was my most charming, nonthreatening smile. Getting her to accept this as a foregone conclusion was the first step in wearing down the barriers she’d erected.
“And to answer your other question,” Kai piped up, much to my chagrin, “being the ancient and powerful werelock that he is, Alcaeus has the ability, if he acts promptly”—he shot me a meaningful look—“to block the progress of your simple werewolf mating venom and prevent your mark from becoming permanent.”
Asshole.
He crossed his arms over his chest in self-satisfaction as my mate’s jaw fell open and her eyes widened at me in accusation. “I was not mistaken,” Kai asserted. “In fact, it’s worked successfully enough in the past whenever a power-hungry, conniving bitch has attempted to lay claim to Al’s wolf.”
“It’s not the same, Kai, and you know it!” I blasted him.
I decided to lay it all out and make my intentions known. She was obviously confused about what was happening between us—about what our mate bond even meant. As was Kai, apparently, if he thought that the mark was all that this was about.
“Look, Cynthia, what happened between us yesterday when we first met was an act of fate. This bond between us—it’s predestined. For me, we were mated the moment we saw one another. The marking makes it official, yes, but it’s nothing but a formality at this point.”
She looked from me to Kai, as if she was unsure of who or what to believe.
“Don’t get me wrong; you marking me yesterday was the single greatest moment of my life, and I have absolutely no desire or intention of reversing it.” I delivered the last part to Kai. “But this”—I gestured between us—“isn’t about a bite.”
Her brow furrowed. She looked lost. Looked so small and fragile, the way she had in the bathroom when she’d been so startled that she’d shot at me.
“You can’t imagine how awful I feel—how sorry I am that I haven’t been there for you for all these years. That I wasn’t around to protect you from a rogue attack. That I wasn’t there to assist your initial werewolf transformation and keep the pain from you that you undoubtedly experienced.”
She pursed her lips, giving nothing away. Then she picked up her fork and started eating again, shutting me out.
I kept talking anyway.
This needed to be said.
“I like to think that to some degree, up until this point, my ancestors have protected you—my predestined mate—in my stead. But I’m here now. The bad things that have happened to you—those scars on your ribs from your human life”—I shook my head, wincing internally at the pain they must’ve caused her—“nothing like that will ever happen to you again. I swear it on my life, Cynthia.”
“Your mate’s name is Averhilda, by the way,” Kai supplied. “Let me know if you need help coming up with a mnemonic device for it.”