Odessa had never ripped a man’s clothes from his body. Until now. As soon as the doors of the hotel elevator had closed behind them, she had shoved Lowell up against the mirrored wall, pressing tight against him as her lips found the fiery heat of his. They had managed to restrain themselves long enough to get inside the hotel room, but now she was finding herself on the floor of a hotel bedroom for the first time ever. And Lowell was throwing the last remnants of her clothing aside.

This is such a bad idea. Such an amazingly, wonderfully bad idea.

“You are still bleeding.” His voice was hoarse as he lifted her right hand to his lips.

As the tip of his tongue touched her injured flesh, Lowell’s eyes darkened and Odessa’s body jerked violently in response. Slowly, keeping his eyes on hers, he ran his tongue back and forth over her damaged flesh. Wolf healing. His saliva was cool against her hot skin. Dragging his tongue over her palm, he licked, and stroked, rasping and stinging. How could it be arousing to have him lick her this way? But it was. When Lowell raised his head, and licked her blood from his lips, there was a deeper bond between them. A barrier that transcended the physical had been crossed.

A shudder thrilled through Odessa as she twined her other hand in his hair, pulling his lips down to her breast. Had she really tried to tell herself she could fight this? As soon as Lowell had looked at her with those hungry-wolf eyes back in the coffee shop this had been inevitable. Now, she wanted to devour him, to let this passion consume her, to let her skin merge with his.

His lips drew on the tender tip of her breast as his thigh moved between her legs. She arched her back, pressing herself into the unyielding muscle of his leg, riding it as he sucked at her. His fingers parted her folds and she cried out in delight as one broad, male finger pierced her core. Wasn’t this what she’d been picturing the whole time she’d sat across from him primly sipping her coffee? Heat exploded inside her, tearing through to her nerve endings as her muscles clenched around his caressing finger.

“So hot.” Lowell was panting as he lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. “I haven’t been able to get your heat out of my head.”

Odessa’s hips jerked wildly as he pulled his finger back, then pushed inside her again. Her thighs fell farther apart, and she lifted her hips higher, offering herself to him completely. She cried out again as another finger joined the first, thrusting deeper inside her. It was time to stop pretending she wasn’t a werewolf, to stop hiding the truth from herself. There was nothing sophisticated or human about what she wanted from this man. Raw, primal heat pulsed around them, stripping the oxygen from the atmosphere and leaving her gasping. Odessa wanted him to fuck her, fill her, pound her like an animal, while she threw back her head and howled from a pleasure that would nearly destroy them both.

She moved her hand down to grip his shaft, exulting at the way his hard flesh throbbed beneath her fingers. He was hot silk, ridged with veins, his swollen head dark and beaded at the tip with a pearl of semen. He was so huge her fingers didn’t meet around him. As she moved her hand down his length, Lowell gave a guttural groan.

“Can’t wait any longer.”

He shifted their positions, his hands holding her thighs apart as he moved into place between them. She remembered him using a condom last time, but all pretense was gone now. There were no human barriers. They might not be in wolf form, but they knew exactly who they were and what they wanted.

Lowell’s lips lowered to hers, searing her with passion and fire, whipping her into a frenzy she couldn’t fight. As his tongue entered her lips, Odessa felt the blunt pressure of his cock sliding between her tender, swollen folds. Tingling fingers of fire darted over her flesh as she spread wide for him. The intense pleasure of his huge cock parting her, penetrating her, impaling her was so maddeningly good. Beyond good. It was a rapture that threatened to burn her up. Her whimpers combined with his hoarse groan as he pushed deeper until he was fully seated inside her.

“You’re so big.” She murmured the words against the column of his throat, her teeth nipping at him. “Feels so good inside me.”

He pulled back, and her hands clutched his shoulders, feeling his muscles bunch as he clasped her hips and plunged inside her again. Odessa jerked up to him, writhing wildly, bucking beneath him at the fiery stretching of his body in her, the pleasure-pain whipping her into a frenzy. Hard hands gripped her hips, holding her down, as his pelvis thrust and his erection plunged, spreading fire from her clenching muscles throughout her whole body.

His lips drew back in a snarl as he fucked her furiously over and over, piling sensation on top of new sensation until she thought she was losing her mind in a haze of delight. The whole world tightened and focused on Lowell, on the thick length of his cock driving into her, and his golden eyes locked on hers. His strength. His dominance. His need. Her internal muscles began to tighten and contract. She arched her back, calling out his name.

She was possessed. In that moment she was his. Totally. Trails of fire ignited beneath her flesh. Within seconds, she was ablaze. The flames tore through her, burning her with white heat and pyrotechnic explosions. Orgasm ripped her apart, destroyed her, and left her shuddering through each wild spasm as she clung helplessly to Lowell with her arms around his shoulders.

She could feel his climax storming through his body. He threw his head back, and his cock jerked before she felt the heat of his release pulsing deep inside her.

As Lowell collapsed over her, Odessa let a contented sigh leave her throat. She had no right to feel content. Contentment was for people whose whole world wasn’t being torn to shreds by forces beyond their control. But for now, for this moment, just lying in Lowell’s arms was enough to make her feel the sort of fulfillment she had searched for all her life. And that brought fear and happiness in equal measures.

* * *

Lowell lay back on the bed with a sheet covering his hips, watching Odessa as she tried Isaak’s number. He could watch Odessa forever. The thought jolted him out of his post-sex elation and he frowned. He couldn’t allow these thoughts to creep in. She was a Siberian. And not just any Siberian. No matter how much his eyes lingered on those tempting dainty curves as the sheet slipped away from her body, this was Santin’s daughter. Being here next to her was the ultimate betrayal of everything he was. The way his body responded to her was just about as fucked up as an Arctic werewolf could get.

It wasn’t as if Lowell could plead ignorance about this. His day job was the environment, but his hobby was werewolf history. He was probably the world’s leading expert on werewolf folklore. A slight smile touched his lips. He knew how people viewed him. Lowell came from werewolf nobility and human wealth. The mansion where he lived alone was crammed with books, some of them the only copies in existence, about wolves, lycanthropes, and other creatures of the night. Crackpot. Loner. Eccentric. Those were just the kinder comments he had overheard about himself. His fellow werewolves came to him for advice when they had a problem. Humans tended to steer clear of him. That suited Lowell just fine. He had no need of others, human or werewolf. He gave back in the ways he knew how. To the environment, the werewolf community and the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun. Personal contact with others? That wasn’t for him. He saw his fellow brotherhood members every few hundred years. As friendships went, that suited him fine.

Then along had come Odessa and rocked his whole world off its axis.

He needed to figure out how to get it back again. Because this Arctic-Siberian thing wasn’t happening. Not long term. He knew better than anyone what would happen if an Arctic and a Siberian tried to mate. It would bring the force and savagery of two warring species of werewolves down on their heads. For Odessa, as the Siberian leader, it would spell the end of her reign and plunge the Siberian pack into civil war. For Lowell, it would mean going into hiding as every Siberian across the world vowed to kill him. His place in the brotherhood would be gone. Those limited friendships he did have would be affected. Even his brotherhood teammates would find it hard to accept a Siberian werewolf. They would be cast out by both sides with no hiding place in either the human or the werewolf world. And a family of their own? Forget it. No one in their right mind would bring half-breed cubs into the equation. Why was he even thinking long term about this? They needed to get this madness out of their system. Fuck it out of their system—his cock responded to that idea with an enthusiastic jerk—and get on with sorting out whatever was going on in the Arctic Circle. Then Lowell could get back to doing what he did best. Being alone.

“He isn’t answering.” Odessa looked up from her phone with a worried expression. “It’s not even going to voice mail.”

“Where in Siberia are your headquarters?”

Her eyes were wary as she regarded him. The question hung in the air between them, summarizing his thoughts of moments ago. He was an Arctic. She was a Siberian. He had just poured himself into her body without restraint and she had opened up to him, giving him access to every part of her. Yet she was wondering if she could trust him with a simple piece of information about her pack.

“Sakha Republic.”

Lowell bit back a smile. She wasn’t exactly telling him much. The Sakha Republic was an area of Russian territory occupying approximately three million square kilometers. Three million of the bleakest, most hostile kilometers in the world.

“I would imagine getting a signal isn’t the easiest thing out there.”

She lifted one slender shoulder in an impatient shrug. “I have never had a problem contacting him before.”

“Do you have contact details for other pack members?”

Odessa nodded. “I have been trying them.” Her eyes were mesmerizing, drawing him into their icy depths. “No answer from anyone.”

Lowell reached a decision. “Then I guess there’s only one thing for it. We have to take a trip to Siberia.”

“I have to take a trip to Siberia. You can’t come with me.”

He leaned back against the headboard, lacing his hands behind his head as he watched her. Pretended to watch her while focusing on the way the sheet had slipped to reveal the side of one deliciously curved breast. “Why not?”

Odessa bit back a laugh. “Because you will be ripped apart as soon as you set foot on Siberian territory.”

“Will I? Is that because you can’t control your pack?”

His gaze switched to her eyes, enjoying the way they iced up when she grew angry. “I can control my pack, but no Arctic has ever been allowed into our land. I’m not going to be the leader who breaks that tradition.”

Lowell reached out a hand, catching hold of her hair and twisting it around his fist. He drew it tight, using it to pull her closer, pausing when their faces were inches apart. Odessa was breathing hard, but he sensed her anger was dissipating fast. “Scared, Odessa?”

“Of you? No.” She did that looking-down-her-dainty-Siberian-princess-nose thing so well. It brought out something raw and primal in him. Lowell had always prided himself on being an intellectual. He was the brotherhood’s academic. If someone had told him a week ago he would enjoy discovering his deep-seated wolf instincts, he’d have laughed. Now, he was exulting in them. He wanted Odessa constantly. Wild and rough and animal. His need for her made his blood sizzle, consuming him with its red-hot intensity.

He lowered his lips to Odessa’s, nipping at them, before searing her with a kiss. “I meant of yourself.”

When she lifted her head, she was panting. “Of myself?” The sheet she had been clutching to her breasts slipped away as she shifted position so she could straddle his hips. “Maybe.”

* * *

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea.” Odessa had eyed Lowell crossly as he took the seat next to her on the flight from JFK to Moscow.

He hadn’t replied. Just smiled sweetly at her then closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. At least she was fairly sure he was pretending, since they had been flying for almost nine hours and he hadn’t stirred. Not that she’d been watching him the whole time. Or even most of it. That would make her fixated on him, which of course she wasn’t.

She sighed, dragging her eyes away from the carved perfection of Lowell’s lips and leaning back in her seat. Leaving Santin Creative just after the launch of Serpent’s Eye wasn’t ideal, but she could trust Alexei and Serena to run the company in her absence. And all the hard work was done. The launch had been successful. Work was underway on the second game in the series. Knife River was in progress, apart from the minor glitch with the obsidian dagger, which Alexei was working on. Her hand throbbed at the memory and she examined it. There was a mark in the center of her palm. Such a small cut, yet it wasn’t healing, even after Lowell’s ministrations. Plus, it hurt out of all proportion. She couldn’t afford to waste time on aches and pains. Determinedly, she returned her thoughts to Santin Creative. Things would continue in her absence. And she always knew her loyalties to the pack had to come first.

It was just that this felt wrong. Like she was being rushed into something against her judgment. It wasn’t about Lowell. Although don’t get me started on that. Her body still thrummed and ached with erotic memories of the hours they had spent in his hotel room. This went deeper, striking a chord within her she hadn’t known existed. It had started out as a faint warning. Then, as they closed the miles between her human environment and her wolf home, the alarm bells in her subconscious rang louder. Something is very wrong here.

You didn’t know that when you saw someone impersonating you dumping toxic waste in the heart of the Arctic homeland? Not just impersonating; that was me. The thought made her shiver. Someone was hell-bent on reawakening hostilities between the Arctics and the Siberians. Not that it would take much. Usually a brief glance between golden eyes and ice-blue ones was enough to have the two packs at each other’s throats. Which made the attraction between her and Lowell even stranger.

Although she hated to admit it, maybe her mother was right. Emina always said Odessa had spent so long suppressing her inner wolf, she had forgotten how to listen to her deeper instincts. Emulating Lowell, she closed her eyes, trying to reach inside herself and find that warning voice, to search out what this gut feeling was all about. Maybe it was that simple. It wouldn’t take much to reignite the spark and set in chain a new Sibo-Arctic war. So why was someone going to such lengths over this? Making it about Odessa herself? Was someone staking a claim for the Siberian leadership? How did she feel about that? Because the leadership was something she had never been sure she wanted.

Odessa felt her hands curl into the armrests and her lips draw back in a snarl as her inner wolf made a surge for supremacy. She might not be a hands-on leader, but she had a responsibility to her species and she would fulfill that no matter what.

The problem was, she couldn’t think of any obvious challenger. Even if there was someone who wanted to overthrow her, this just seemed such a convoluted and theatrical way of going about it. She sighed, opening her eyes and turning her head to find Lowell’s eyes on her face. The storm of emotion in their amber depths almost stripped the flesh from her face.

“What are you thinking?”

“You may have followed me onto this plane, but you can’t make me share my thoughts with you.” She huffed the words out, uncomfortably aware that he probably could make her do just that. If he touched her she would melt, and the smile in his eyes he told her he knew it. It shouldn’t work this way. They were opposites. He was day and she was night. He sought the golden glow of the sun while she craved the eerie light of the moon. Coexisting was an alien concept for Arctics and Siberians. Odessa’s extreme physical reaction to this man was yet another facet complicating this bizarre situation even further.

Lowell smiled and Odessa’s eyes were drawn to his mouth. Memories of those lips on hers, those teeth nipping at the most sensitive areas of her body, that tongue penetrating every part of her, drove all rational thought out of her head. Instantly, she was wet and aching for him. And he knew it, damn him.

Leaning closer, he murmured softly in her ear. “I know what you are thinking. You don’t need to say it out loud. I can see it in your eyes. I can scent your arousal on you, Odessa. You’re thinking how much you want me inside you again.”

She gave a soft moan, unable to deny it. It didn’t matter what she did. He could strip away her sophisticated human façade with a look. His proximity reduced her to a quivering mass of need. Pretense wasn’t an option. Lifting her eyes to his, she gave in to the longing that was sweeping through her. “When?” The single word sounded a lot like a plea.

Lowell’s expression changed instantly. The hunger lurking just below the surface became fierce ownership. “As soon as we get to the hotel. I will make you beg me to fuck you.”

The promise in his voice made her bite her lip. She gave a shaky laugh. “Are you this demanding with all your partners?” Even as she said the words, she decided she didn’t like the thought of him with other partners. Then she didn’t like the idea that she might be getting possessive about him . . . Oh, God, what the hell is happening to me?

“Just you.” Those words and the look in his eyes should have scared her. Should have had her seeking out a flight attendant and begging them to barricade her into a place of safety. Instead, they made her hotter than ever.

“Perhaps it’s just as well we couldn’t get a connecting flight to Yakutsk until tomorrow.” Yakutsk was the capital of the Sakha Republic, the vast Siberian territory Santin had called home.

“Tell me about your headquarters. You must have figured out by now I’m not an Arctic spy. I don’t want to be on this flight any more than you want me here.”

Odessa took a moment to adjust to the change from raw heat to cool efficiency. No one could accuse Lowell of being boring. Unpredictable and maddening, yes. Boring, no. She seriously doubted there was anything to lose by giving him the information he wanted. If the famed Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun was all it was reported to be, he could find out everything he needed without her help. A thought flitted across her mind. If the goal of the brotherhood really was the destruction of the Siberians, why didn’t Lowell already know this?

“The Siberian packs are spread throughout the region, but my father made his home just south of Yakutsk, in the forest of the Olyokminsky District.”

Lowell leaned back in his seat, stretching his long legs. “The Siberians are unique among werewolf society. They are the only species with one overall leader.”

“Doesn’t every werewolf species have the same structure?” Odessa felt slightly ashamed at confessing to the gaps in her education.

“Most mirror wolf society and are made up of packs. Those packs have their own hierarchy and rules with an alpha male and female who are responsible for maintaining order and cohesion. Below them are the betas, followed by mid-ranking wolves, and finally the omegas. But, unlike the Siberians, it’s rare to find a species where there is an overall ruler of all those packs. Someone who is in charge above all the alphas.”

“That’s not the case in your Arctic species?” As Odessa asked the question, she wondered about the breed that spent their lives craving the strange glow of the midnight sun. He was her enemy, yet this man beside her fascinated her. “This brotherhood of yours doesn’t impose rules upon the Arctic packs?” She thought back to what her mother had told her about the evil group of werewolves who destroyed everything in their path. She couldn’t reconcile Lowell with that image.

Lowell quirked a brow at her. “Someone has been telling you some very strange stories about us, Odessa. The brotherhood are peacekeepers and we answer to the goddess Angrboda . . . your own grandmother. Most werewolf species do a good job of policing themselves, but Angrboda set up the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun many centuries ago when that wasn’t happening. There was one werewolf who was out of control and the goddess needed help to control him.”

Even though she was fairly sure she wouldn’t like the answer, Odessa decided she needed to ask the next question. “Who was it?”

“Her own son, your father, Santin the Siberian.”