Chapter Five
Waking up brought sunlight and the face of Yanus sleeping beside Frey. Smiling, she stretched, kissed him gently, and got out of bed, getting dressed. She felt more content and relaxed than she had for a long time, since the stress of home life and the jealously from the undivided attention Evo received – offset by their time spent together. After her father's death, she thought her quality of life would improve, now her mother no longer had someone telling her how to think.
Instead, her mother did a good job of destroying her body and mind through drink.
It meant that Frey, as much as she wanted to live the childhood she never had – could never experience it.
She had lost it forever.
She examined Yanus, the light casting shadows on his delicate cheekbone. From their first time sharing a bed together, a week had passed. One week of passion, fun and concern, and for sharing the secrets locked up in their hearts. Yanus learned that his brother, two years younger, had been named heir.
Because of his persistence in sheltering the runaway wife, and for the odd disappearance of the Koroslav, he had dissolved to nothing in their eyes.
Frey understood that feeling only too well, of what it was to be nothing, to be discarded and hated when you did nothing wrong except to be born, and to do what you believed was right.
She smacked her lips, an odd, metallic taste lingering there, along with a faint sense of nausea – which she sometimes felt if she got up too fast. The metallic taste made her feel like she had been sucking on a coin, and she went to wash out the flavor with a glass of water.
She found Evo lounging with Luelle in the main bar, chatting quietly, both at ease in one another's presence.
Wouldn't it be funny, Frey thought, if they dated each other as well? Wouldn't that be such a strange twist of fate? The idea delighted her, and lit a warm hearth in her chest. Wouldn't that feel like fate, indeed?
Not that she was one for believing fate had a hand in the lives of people. People made their own fates.
Evo and Luelle jumped when a banging noise came from the hotel entrance.
Instantly, Frey cursed the fact she'd been negligent in leaving her Taurus upstairs, instead of automatically carrying it with her wherever she went.
It could be the police, it could be wolves.
It could be trouble.
“Hide. Now.” Frey dashed to Luelle, bundling her with Evo to the stairs. “I'm grabbing my gun.”
“It might not be anything bad,” Luelle said, doubtful, fear clouding her eyes.
“Yeah, well, we're not taking chances.”
Yanus blinked sleepily as Luelle was tossed into his room. “Wha – ?”
Frey reached for her Taurus, and Yanus suddenly became wide awake, his green eyes glowing. Frey placed a finger to her lips before bounding downstairs with her brother, even as the pounding continued to echo through the entrance.
By the door, Evo called, “Who is it? Who is knocking so early in the morning?”
“Elinor,” a muffled voice responded. “Elinor Spirova.”
Frey shivered fear. Fuck. One of the ancient families.
“Why are you here? Tell us, please!” Evo bit back a growl.
“Because I need to talk to you. I'm alone. You may be in grave trouble.”
Evo stared wildly at Frey, who shrugged, mouthing “Can we trust her?”
“What trouble? And how do you know the trouble will be here?”
“A vengeance party is coming. Whatever happened with you guys, you didn't clean up well enough. The Koroslavs know their son is dead. They know one of the Armanev sons is hiding Luelle – because some idiot sent a text message to his parents. And if you remember, they have a Koroslav relative in the family.”
Oh, shit. I remember that message! “Why are you telling us this?”
Elinor scratched at the door, her powerful, deep voice reverberating through Frey's ears. “Because three Russian clans have decided to cross into Bulgaria and they've slaughtered members of my pack in the surrounding towns. They're infecting humans, breaking our laws. And they're going to march right up to the seat of power and demand for Luelle, or a blood vengeance. Given their frenzy, even if we offer Luelle, they might just decide to screw us over anyway. We will look ripe for the picking to them.”
At this, Frey opened the door, revealing a tall, Valkyrie of a woman, dark yellow eyes resplendent in her face. She looked like a product of the mountains, a child raised with the knowledge of the cold and the dark. Every inch an Alpha.
Elinor nodded, her lips curling in a snarl. “We need every fighter we can get. And we may need this place to become a hospital and refuge. I'll post some steep protection in this town. As for Luelle, because I know she's probably here...” Elinor strode in, sniffing the air. “Yes, I smell her. You'll need to take her with my brother Markus, to his place in America. However, he's not going to be going back to America straight away. He's here to kill Ricten Spirova.”
Frey blinked. “Markus Spirova... kill... Ricten Spirova?”
“Ricten is a mad dog. He should have been put down years ago. He's the same ilk as the Lubanovs, and we all know what happened to them.”
Frey sighed, heading to a chair and sitting in it. “This is fucked up. I don't even know what to do.”
Elinor ignored her, now prowling around the hotel to check the rooms. Her short, dark blonde hair tufted around the collar of her jacket. Evo and Frey followed after the Alpha, who nodded in approval at the rooms. “Yes. This will be a good base.”
Finally, she walked into the room with Luelle and Yanus Armanev, who both growled at her as she entered. With a vicious bark and a flash of yellow eyes, her presence cowered the wolf in Luelle, but rankled the one in Yanus. He stood up, matching the snarl, his teeth sharpening, hairs beginning to form on his hands.
“You still have bite. Good,” Elinor spat. A smile covered her contorted features. “You'll need it.” She glided out of the room, closely followed by Evo.
Yanus blinked in utter confusion, the ferocity dissipating from his face. “What? What the hell was that?”
Frey flumped on the bed beside him. “Trouble.” Frey stared at the empty corridor, where Elinor and Evo had gone.
“Why is she here?”
“Trouble,” Frey repeated. She explained about the Russian clans, the message Yanus had sent to his family which resulted in the knowledge passing on. He started trembling in guilt and frustration, and Frey clutched his hand tightly.
“It will be okay. We'll get through this. We'll protect your sister.”
“If they kill my whole family because of this...” Yanus squeezed her hand, almost crushing the bones in it. Frey endured, hissing deeply.
“We'll get through it.”
Luelle, sensing that they needed a moment, made her excuses and departed from the room, leaving Frey and Yanus alone.
“Frey. I'm so sorry. We brought this on you.”
“Don't be sorry. We chose to take you in. We chose to help.”
Yanus pulled her in close, transitioning from crushing the bones in her hand to squishing the air out of her lungs. “Thank you.”
“No problem. We're in this together.”
“I love you,” he whispered into Frey's ear, then making her gasp in surprise.
Whatever she'd been expecting, that wasn't it. She pulled back from the hug to stare into his haunting green eyes, her heart thumping painfully.
“Didn't think you'd ever hear those words, did you?” He said slyly, some of his fear turning into amusement.
Frey merely shook her head, speechless, before finally rasping, “We're probably all gonna die due to rabid Russian werewolves and you decide now that this is a good time to say something like that?”
“Better before we die. And you're certainly a one of a kind woman.”
“Fuck,” Frey said. She lay on the bed, happy and despairing at the same time. “Fuck you.”
“Gladly,” Yanus said, grinning.
Frey laughed, placing an arm over her eyes. To hear someone say those words to her and mean it, it melted all the hard points over her heart. It pissed her off as well, because she knew that things were likely going to go to shit in the next few weeks, and Yanus needed to disappear to America with Luelle.
Maybe she should go with him. Would her little brother come? Would he stay?
She thought about his affection toward Luelle.
Steel entered her resolve.
For better or for worse, it seemed the Radev siblings had twisted their lives with the Armanev ones.
Where Yanus went, she would follow. She reached for his hand again, and held it gently. “I'm with you. Whatever happens. Wherever you go.”
Lips brushed her cheek. “I'm counting on it.”
The End
Rose’s Mate
Shifters of the Bulgarian Bloodline
Prologue
She ran for her life, her breath huffing in the cold night. She shot past streetlamps, lonely buildings and abandoned machinery, her hairy feet pounding the concrete. Her enhanced sight alighted on shapes within the blackness, shapes that pursued her.
Her breathing became manic, panicked. She didn't just fear for her life. She feared for the little one, bundled in her arms, eyes squinted as he stared up at his mother, not yet scared or wailing, just curious. The rocking motion of her gait actually helped lull him into a sleepy yawn. The bundles protected him against the cold whip of wind, and all she could do was pray, and hope that she might escape.
Without her arms swinging like pistons at her sides, she couldn't run as fast as normal. She loped, sometimes swerved, sometimes risked leaps, all the while listening for her pursuers.
They would want her back. They desired the child in her arms. Her thoughts slid to the Basement, and terror froze her brain for a moment, before the adrenaline kicked the fear aside into something manageable.
She never, ever wanted to return to the Basement again. Not to that place where women suffered and where their plaintive cries rent the night, heard only by uncaring ears, of those who drank in pain like food and water, who practised their distorted perceptions of an ideal life.
Ideal! Chains were their ideal. Producing offspring from suffering and hate filled them with sadistic joy. They were so careful, too, picking people no one would miss. Human girls without passports, women trafficked from seedy regions and red-light districts to the Basement.
How they rejoiced when she had been delivered into their midst. How they trapped her in their web of evil, knowing she wouldn't be missed, because everyone thought her dead, like the rest of her clan. The others had descended upon her family with the ferocity of the Devil, leaving her with nothing but hatred and seeping darkness in her heart.
Now, she didn't know where to go, where to run, except that this child of hers couldn't be left to that fucked-up cult, to be raised in their insane and depraved image, without the chance of learning how to live a happy and decent life. And perhaps, in turn, making others suffer as she had suffered when reaching prime age.
Never again. The cycle needed to break, to wrench itself from the shackles of the past, and the perpetration of limitless evil.
Never again.
If she was lucky, she'd be killed. That Gregorovitch who had been asking around for her – she knew he wanted her dead, too. Just like her family.
The baby in her arms, nameless, because she feared his death in the first early weeks of his life, blinked at her with yellow and blue eyes. He had the gift. Once he had weaned himself off her milk, the babe would disappear forever into the cracks of evil.
Ivelina ran, gasping as she did so, her breath harsh and sobbing as she sprinted through the night.
Half an hour went without any glimpse or scent of the others. In a flash, she morphed back into her human form, before pounding upon the door of a random house. She pounded and pounded until the light came on, and someone peered cautiously through the curtains. Their eyes widened at the sight of her as a filthy mess, clutching the baby tight.
They opened the door, and Ivelina saw a young woman, likely a student, in her pajamas, with a scruff of red hair, concern and anxiety etched upon her pretty features.
Ivelina started talking to the girl, but the girl replied in English, shaking her head and holding up her hands.
Ivelina switched. “Take baby. Please. Protect him. Have money.” She dug into her baggy robes, and dropped dozens of notes onto the floor of the astonished woman. “Take him. Keep him safe. I have to go.”
Without giving the woman any time to protest, Ivelina placed the baby at her feet. Then, with a heart-wrenching sob of anger and bitterness, she went back the way she came. To lure her chasers away.
The look of horror and confusion on the girl's face might have made her laugh at one time. No more laughter existed for Ivelina these days.
There was only darkness.