Pallas rolled off Leona, dizzy with a different sort of lust. Bloodlust. He had fed earlier that day and that should hold him for days, but here he was, hunger a burn in his gut. He’d almost bitten her but she was still weak from bleeding. What sort of lover was he if he made her weaker? The night had been filled with unexpected exertions and emotional distress. He lay on his side and caressed Leona’s sweat-sheened face. He didn’t know how to cope with all these—these feelings. The attack on her life, sharing his blood, the hike into the wilderness—it had a price.
Her blood sang to him like a siren. Pure and true and his… He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent. Something dormant, something old, stirred inside of him.
His was a shifter thing to think. A claim he had heard enough living among them. Never thought that instinct would ever rise inside of him. Not after being stolen from his family.
“Are you okay?” Leona stroked his face. Concern bright in her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You’re shaking.” She pulled him in her arms, pressing tender kisses to his face.
He savored each one, stamping their memory into his heart.
“I’m fine. The sun has risen. That is all.” The truth would scare her. He was old enough to control his bloodlust and she was in no danger. With a sigh, he rolled onto his back, pulling her onto his chest so she could use him as her bed, then he blanketed his T-shirt over her bare flesh.
She rubbed her cheek against his skin. “Is it terrible that I’m in no hurry to return home?”
He ran his rough palms over the smooth skin of her lower back until he cupped her perfect ass. “And deal with Homeland? No.” He laughed. “I still don’t see a way out of this except to start fresh somewhere else, but I am old and not as familiar with your ways as I had thought.”
“The world is small now. They’ll find you eventually.”
“The world shrunk? No one told me this when I woke.”
She levered herself on an elbow. “Not physically. I mean—” She spotted his teasing smile and pressed her lips together and a thin line. “Very funny.” And she curled back against him. “How old are you anyway?”
He shrugged. “Old old.”
“Seriously, that’s your answer. Give me a hint. Did you see dinosaurs?” She always managed to make him laugh with the razor edge of her tongue.
“Not that old, but I’m sure most would consider me a fossil.” He paused, thinking of a reference point she would be familiar with. “I fought in the vampire wars.”
She went so still in his arms, he could barely sense her heartbeat. She finally took a deep breath. “I read about them in college. People think that those wars were myth.”
“People thought vampires and shifters a myth at one time.” So much history was stored in his head that it took effort to keep it linear.
“How is that possible? How did you hide?”
There was his Sheriff Lee again, being practical, looking for her facts and evidence.
“The wars almost killed us all off. Didn’t really need to hide. We were almost extinct.” Those times weighed heavy on him. He still didn’t know how Daedalus had managed to stay alive all this time. His brother had been driven to make a peace treaty, which the shifters called the Accords. Pallas had crawled into a hole to mourn the loss of his pack.
“Oh,” she breathed in a whisper.
“Generations passed and memory faded but the stories remained.”
“You sound so sad.”
“I lost my pack to those wars. Every single wolf slaughtered right down to the pups.” There was still a hollow place in his chest that ached every time he thought of them. He had thought a new pack would fill the hole. They helped, but he realized the pain would always be with him.
As if sensing it, she rubbed the spot over his heart. “Why are you always with wolves? Shouldn’t you be with your own kind?”
So focused on her touch, he spoke without thinking of the consequences. “I am with my own kind.”
She stopped and sat up. “Newsflash. You’re a vampire. Like you kept reminding me on the way here.”
His fangs ached from him smiling so much in the last hour. He held up his finger for her to wait as he listened for the pack activity outside. He didn’t want to divulge his secrets to the whole world. It could leave him vulnerable.
Outside, he heard distant noise of food preparation and someone arguing. He couldn’t sense anyone close to the alcove.
He pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered his deepest secret. The one only a few people knew, like Daedalus and their maker. “Wolf shifters are my people.”
Leona’s eyes went wide. “I thought shifters and vampires were immune to each other’s viruses.”
“We are. I couldn’t turn any of my wolves into vampires or vice versa.” He hugged her tight. “But shifters give birth to humans and we are raised with the pack until we are old enough to be turned. We carry an antibody that helps us survive the change once bitten as an adult. Otherwise we would have a much higher chance of dying from the infection.”
“Your parents were wolf shifters?”
“Yes.” He twisted a long length of her hair around his finger, then let it cascade loose only to repeat the action again. What could he say—he had hair envy.
“During the vampire wars?”
“Yes.”
She blew out a deep breath. “You’re old.”
“Ancient.”
“Don’t think that changes anything and that I’ll do whatever you tell me just because you’re older than dirt.”
He gave her hair a small, sharp yank. “That would be boring.” His sheriff’s mind was sharp and that was what he loved about her the most.
“You still crave pack life. That explains a lot, but not everything. How did you go from being a pack child to this?”
“The vampire wars had many casualties and the best warriors were from the Nosferatu clan. They came one night, just a few weeks short of my turning ceremony, and stole me away.” The memory was still raw within his mind even after so many centuries. They had taken away the best part of him.
Leona woved her fingers with his, just listening as he spoke of the worst night of his life. Of the horde of young men turned against their will into vampires. “I was one of the few who survived the transformation.” Becoming a vampire wasn’t as dangerous as a shifter. The survival rates were better, but these were Nosferatu doing the turning. A different, ancient class of vampire. The strain of virus they carried was purer and more deadly. “Only males can be turned and if you lived, you are rewarded great power. I didn’t care for any of it. I missed being pack. I understood being a shifter better than being a vampire. A lot of the old instincts are still inside of me. To save my sanity, they charged me with training their shifter armies. My old pack included in those ranks.”
He closed his eyes, lost in that time. For a long while he had been happy among his people. His life spanning generations, but it all stopped with the bloodiest battle that had spanned most of Europe.
“Pallas?” Across the ages, Leona’s voice pulled him back to the present.
He opened his eyes once more. She looked sad and weary. “I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.” He ran his fingers through her long hair. “I have a new pack.”
“You do.” She caressed his face. “And me.”
His heart swelled. “I have you.”
She kissed him, her firm body against his. “Don’t you forget it.”
He held up their entwined hands. “Shifters mate for life.”
She snorted. “I obviously haven’t a drop of shifter blood in my heritage.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Been married three times. I’m not looking for an ex-husband number four.”
“I’m not applying.” He kissed her hand. “There’s no divorce with mates and you are mine.” Her eyes went wide and a knot twisted in his stomach. She might resist the idea but after all these years, he knew how to read his instincts. Be they vampire or shifter.
Leona would be his forever.
“You have to tell me about these failed marriages.” He glared at the ceiling, fighting the urge to hunt and kill these men who had dared to try stealing her away.
“Um…no.”
He turned his glare onto her. “Why not?”
She flinched. “I want them alive.”
He grimaced. She might not be vampire but she had read his mind. “Fair enough.” For now. If he ever found out they had mistreated her, then he reserved the right to drain them dry.
“We really shouldn’t be so focused on the past anyway. We should be thinking of the future and how we are going to get out of this mess.” Leona’s brow furrowed.
“No worrying.” He smoothed the wrinkles between her eyebrows with his thumb. “Sleep. Tonight we will brainstorm this problem.”
“That’s a very modern word for such an old fart.”
“I’ve been trapped in the manor with young wolves for weeks. I learned a few things.” He could feel her smile against his skin. “Your body has been through a lot tonight. Take the time to rest. Tomorrow will be busy.”
She sighed. “And healing that wound took a lot of my energy as well.”
He barked out a surprised laugh. He had meant her wound but she had twisted it to something sexual. A woman truly of his own heart. The strange peace inside his soul felt awkward and misplaced, like a chipped tooth, he kept poking at it, trying to make sense of the new sensation. Was he happy? How would he know? The blind couldn’t describe a sunset any more than he could explain this emotion. Whatever Leona sparked within him, he wanted more.
Stroking her hair, he listened to her breathing slow and turn into an adorable snore. Her body melted to his and she relaxed into a deep sleep that only those who felt safe could attain. He was honored to guard her dreams and slipped inside her mind to ward off nightmares.
Leona blinked away the sleep from her eyes and sat up, staring at the stone walls of the cave. The hamster in her mind was stumbling to his wheel so she had no clue how she’d gotten here.
The low light from a banked fire, her only source of light. She stared down at her exposed tits.
And she was naked.
Straddling Pallas.
Whose sexy smirk seemed more pleased than usual. “Good night.” His gravelly voice did things to her body. Tightening certain sore muscles. The wheel started turning and she recalled every detail from last night.
“Good morning.” She rubbed her eyes. “I mean, night. Fuck, who do I have to shoot for some coffee?”
He ran his hands over her bare thighs. “We can stop for some when we reach town.”
She grimaced at the thought of hiking back in the cold. “Homeland will be blanketing these woods by now.” She couldn’t believe the national force hadn’t caught them yet.
“You give their woodcraft too much credit. My wolves can travel around them.” He tapped her nose. “Trust their skill.”
She’d read all about shifters advanced scent skills and powerful hearing. She looked forward to actually witnessing it in action. Otherwise they were jailbait.
Grabbing her uniform, she dressed. Someone had made an attempt to clean her jacket and then slipped it past the branch barrier when dried. Her white shirt was too shredded to wear, so bra and jacket only.
Pallas’ clothes and boots seemed dry. The vampire appeared very comfortable roughing it in a cave. All she could think about was a hot shower and coffee. She never had liked camping.
She pulled out her cell phone, not surprised to see it was dead. Looked like she was on her own with a pack of werewolves and an ancient vampire.
Pallas guided her out of the alcove to his waiting pack. He hung his arm over her shoulder and kissed her cheek.
Heat spread through her body. Okay, not alone.