Chapter Five
Day fifteen of my subsequent kidnapping. The worse they've done to me since caving in my skull is to give me cheese and pickle sandwiches, and ask me to become a fake mother to the surprise baby.
The offer of living in this neat and fancy mansion appealed to me. Being surrounded by werewolves – not so much. Sebastian mentioned something about poor impulse control.
Sebastian... her thoughts spiraled around him. What should she feel about him?
A nervous, excited fluttering pulsed in her stomach, sending trickles of pleasure through her veins. Maybe she did like him. More than expected. Then again, if he was the only man she was exposed to day in and day out, of course she might grow a little attracted to him. Then there was the whole fact that he happened to be fucking gorgeous.
I suppose I am far too seriously considering swapping my paintbrush for what appears to basically be Bulgarian aristocracy.
She showered, placed on a yellow sundress, and was just spending time carefully de-tangling her hair in front of the triple mirror dressing table, when someone frantically knocked at her door, whom she guessed to be Sebastian.
“Come in,” she said. “I won't bite...”
The curly-haired werewolf sauntered in, though Rose caught a slight aura of panic emanating from him. “Wow, what's with you?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Sebastian said, waving a bag of cookies at her. “Aside from the fact I may have lied to you... a little.”
Rose stared at him with a guarded expression, one eyebrow jerking. “About what?” She placed the hairbrush down, noting some of her hair frizzed out from static electricity. Sebastian shuffled on the spot, as if debating something, before striding up to her and grasping her by the shoulder.
Immediately, Rose found herself hyper-alert, surprise snaking over her skin. Those mysterious silver eyes, like full moons trapped between long eyelashes, gazed at her with such intensity that she felt sections of a resolve she didn't know she possessed crumbling into nothing. The slivers of interest and attraction she bore towards him quite suddenly blossomed into something intense and burning.
“Oh my,” she said, as the werewolf bent down to kiss her on the lips for the first time. Their lips danced a slow waltz, testing out the sensations the act unraveled in their tense bodies.
He pulled away gently, those hooded eyes crinkled in joy. “I've been wanting to do that within an hour of you waking up. If I'm honest.”
Rose needed a moment to catch her breath. Her cheeks burned scarlet, and she had slight difficulties keeping herself upright. “Wow. That's one way to charm your way into my panties. Much better than braining me.”
He grinned triumphantly, his eyes dilating, flaring up in lust. His grip became tighter, and he whisked her off her feet, and twirled her around before settling her onto the bed.
Things progressed rather quickly after that.
Their clothes were shredded in the frenzy of passion that followed, as Sebastian kissed her lips, lashing his tongue against hers. His hands worked at her dress, frustrated by the awkward buttons until she helped him pry it off, and he kicked out of his clothes so fast, that Rose actually needed to suppress the urge to laugh.
His body under the clothes made her wet. Lean, powerful muscles wrapped around his wiry frame, giving him a polished, toned, fighter build. Where some men bulked out like mountains, Sebastian held a whippet-thin build that suited his height, and she could feel the strength in his toned arms as he pushed his palms onto hers. He quickly became fully erect as they grinded against one another above the red-tinted bedsheets, and Rose's gasps mixed with his excited breathing, his thundering heartbeat.
The crisp, clean-air aroma about his body made her inhale deeply, and even press her nose against his neck so she could keep breathing in the scent of him, letting it bathe her in his presence, the fact that he was here now in her arms.
“I want you to be my mate,” he hissed into her ear, before lightly nipping it, playing with the earlobe for a good moment as she shivered, and gasped.
Had she heard right? The words sent tremors of shock and anticipation. Do I want this?
This became accompanied by, if I accept this, then I'm gonna be stranded with the baby. I'll need help if that happens. I can't look after it alone. I have no idea how.
His erection pushed against her entrance, and she whimpered, bracing her legs as he fully slid inside her.
Their bodies melded together, sharing heat, desire and infatuation, infecting their minds and sending them both into dizzying heights of passion. Rose found herself plummeting off the edge and enjoying every second, basking in the sight of this glorious statue of a person moving his way inside her, the way his eyes had completely glazed over in the throes of passion, and she squeezed hers shut too, tilting her head back as together, they journeyed towards their climax.
She loved the brush of his body against hers, his olive skin making her body ripple from the soft contact. She loved the way he kissed her, leaving a light, wet trail over her neck and between her breasts, before he braced himself and increased his pace within.
She wrapped her legs around him, urging him on, and drowning in the wave of emotion, her mind blotting itself free of all chaotic thought.
One climax later, they lay panting side by side, grinning and still finding excuses to touch one another's skin.
“Okay,” Rose said, after long deliberation, possibly slightly biased due to her post-orgasm glow. “I'll be your mate.”
His face lit up in sheer joy. The smile grew until it had consumed all the sadness and frown lines in his cheeks.
“You will? You really will?”
Rose laughed, and leaned over to peck him on the lips. “I like you. And I think I would massively regret turning down an opportunity like that. I mean, when one of the most handsome guys I've ever seen on this planet says he wants to be my partner, well, gee, I better listen.”
He identified her cheeky smirk, and rolled them both over, until she sprawled out on top of his lightly sweating body. “Given the less than ideal circumstances in which we met, I s’pose this will have to do. Just wanna say, though, I promise to give you the best life I can possibly offer.”
Rose sighed, and rested her head against his chest. “That would be nice,” she murmured.
Her latent aspirations once lay in an art school, and traveling the world, with no vision of a boyfriend by her side, though she had hoped somewhere down the line for this to be possible. She hoped to make her parents proud.
A new path unveiled itself like a budding flower, showing her something beautiful she had never considered before. The mountains. The wild. The soft, silvery eyes of Sebastian, and his firm affection. And an abandoned baby who had unwittingly been the catalyst of it all.
She stroked him on the chest with her soft palms. “I could easily fall in love with someone like you. Just keep feeding me those cookies and I'll be yours indefinitely.”
He squeezed her tightly, peppering kisses on her scalp. “I think I can give you more than cookies. I can give you love.”
Love. Such a simple word, to invoke such powerful feelings. Rose shivered, cold and warm at the same time. She needed a moment to recover, and hugged him tightly the whole while, her limbs shivering and weak, her mind unable to process the information and to stick to any one emotion at the same time. It made her happy. It made her sad.
It made her free.
**
When they went to see the baby in the nursery later on, the lady who had been there before was cradling the little one in her arms, humming a lullaby. She smiled when they walked in, and Sebastian greeted her, before she bowed, handed the baby to Rose, and left the room.
She watched the retreating back of the cleaning lady, in her simple black and white frock, before glancing down at the cooing baby, which now tried to grasp at her fingers. Intelligence shone from those young eyes.
A secret baby, from a woman long-believed dead. A baby that might be sought by the ominous person or people that had killed Ivelina Lubanov. He certainly didn't come without any strings attached.
A baby that for some inexplicable reason, which she was sure it would regret when growing up – liked her. It actively giggled when she appeared in front of it, and it did so now. It seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that she wasn't the real mother.
That thought made her frown. Just because she happened to be a woman, didn't automatically qualify her to be a mother. If she committed to this, to Sebastian, to his family, there was something she wanted to do.
“I want to name him,” she said.
Sebastian wrapped his arms around her, staring at his distant relative. “Of course.” He hugged her gently, and brushed at her smooth, red hair. “Unless it's a terrible name.”
“I was thinking after my grandpa. He was called Anthony.”
Sebastian contemplated this, then whispered, “I like it. Let's go with it. Honor your ancestor's memory.”
Rose stroked the newly-named Anthony on the head, smiling at his little form.
For good or for worse, it seemed that Rose had thrown her lot in with the werewolves now.
She couldn't complain. Sebastian was a dream come true, and Anthony, well. She could likely learn to love the little tyke the same way her love for the werewolf behind her stoked itself, rising from obscurity into something lodged in her heart, unwilling to move.
A future. Hope. And happiness.
“Thank you, Sebastian,” she whispered, as she passed the baby to him.
“What for?”
“For letting me have the chance to experience this. To be a part of this.”
“No problem,” he said, with a vibrant smile. He held out one hand for her to take, and kissed her on the cheek.
Anthony started making fussing noises, which only quelled when they both kissed the baby on his cheeks.
“I might regret this,” Rose said.
Or I might not.
The End
Ordri’s Mate
Prologue:
When the white wolf came, death followed. His footprints sunk into the wet, rain-sloshed earth. Pink, blooded eyes gleamed in the darkness, under the light of a full moon, which hung huge, as if someone had roped it in closer to the earth.
The darkness in his expression made her shudder and think of the oozing advance of lava, creeping over the land and tainting it with its smoldering touch. In his full glory, a white, muzzled snout and white-furred body pacing closer without any clothes to confine the hulking muscles that ripped out of him, he stopped in front of Ordri.
His lips twitched upwards in a vicious, needle-toothed smile. His eyes dilated in lust, and his nostrils flared. Ordri shivered, feeling alone and vulnerable, even though she knew her alpha was nearby. The alpha she didn’t care about. The alpha she wanted to die.
The scent of the newcomer sent the others from the house outside. In the biting wind, under a cold moon and the jagged sway of leaves, life stood still.
Her alpha, her husband, still in his human clothes, pea-green eyes cautious, twitched in anger.
“You have no right to look at my wife like that,” Timaeus snarled, already morphing as he spoke, russet fur popping out of his human chest. The snout formed with a crunch of bone.
The newcomer paid Timaeus barely any attention at all. His eyes stayed on Ordri, taking in her dark hair, her pale, alabaster skin, the hint of freckles that covered her nose and cheeks. It was as if he was already undressing her with his gaze, capturing her naked and exposed under the weight of his desire, leaving her unsure whether to feel frightened or aroused.
Something about those eyes suggested a superiority, a sublime confidence that he could do what he wanted, act how he pleased. Could this be the one? The challenger that would kill her husband?
The strange desire made her guilty. It might be the werewolf’s way to crush the weak and claim the allegiance of others through force, but she still knew there was a terrible wrongness about the way she disregarded her husband, even though he had disregarded her years back, practically on their wedding night.
The white wolf turned his gaze onto Timaeus, and those lips bristled with derision and scorn. “A weakling like you does not deserve a wolf like her. She is like a jewel, but she does not smell like freedom. She smells like she is kept indoors, saturated with the filth of your ugly stench. She smells of misery.”
He faced Ordri once more. “I will free you from him.”
Ordri’s heart hammered faster. Her husband wasn't perfect, and he got insanely jealous and paranoid over any attention to her. Funny he did that, when they never did anything together. When he chose to make his bed with other women, and keep her for the strength of her family name only. She was just as bad, really. She kept him for the convenience his wealth gave her.
“Leave, or die.” Timaeus, fully morphed, stood protectively in front of Ordri. His two betas joined him, flanking, knowing they had the numbers to challenge the impudent wanderer who dropped into their midst.
The wanderer, however, gave a dangerous smile and a low, rumbling chuckle. “I challenge you for her hand. To the death.”
Ordri Gregorovitch shivered. The last challenge rite in western Bulgaria had been thirty years before.
“You challenge for her hand? You plan to usurp my clan?” Timaeus shivered in rage, the whites of his eyes showing. “Die!”
Timaeus fell upon the wanderer, and his two betas sought to join the fight.
Ordri expected the foolish wanderer to lose. One against one was even, but scary odds. Three against one, with nothing but bare teeth and claws? He may as well have buried himself alive. Her husband planned to cheat – not that she could blame him. The white wolf was built like a demigod, taller than all the rest, with muscles screaming their power.
She crouched by the porch where she had been seated, admiring the evening and the ponderous moon that hung so low in the sky. She had seen the white wolf, like an omen of death, hailing from the distant hills.
The wanderer shrugged off the odds. He ripped and tore at his foes, moving with blinding ferocity, rippling with unbridled power, an aura of destruction around him. Ordri stared in horror as what should have been a rout by her dishonorable mate turned instead into a slaughter of said mate. Lloyd and Gary, his faithful henchmen, had no idea how to handle such explosive strength.
The white wolf lunged at the throat of Lloyd, and in a fountain of hissing blood, tore out his throat with enormous jaws and startling power. He took advantage of Gary's hesitation to pounce on him, and in a brief tussle, clawed at Gary's face, slashing his throat in a red smile.
Timaeus was left alone to deal with the threat, his advantage whittled down to nothing. Fear emanated from his craven skin, and the wanderer gave a loud, exhilarating laugh. He danced around Timaeus with mocking amusement, lunging in to nip him and duck back out, leaving the befuddled and enraged alpha unable to react in time, to do anything to the white wolf’s skill.
“Put up a fight,” the wanderer said, dancing out of a swipe, a desperate lunge at his elusive, phantom foe. “Pretend like you actually give a damn and fight for your honor.”
“Fuck... you,” Timaeus spat, before grabbing the white wolf in a headlock. The white wolf simply twisted out of the lock and latched his jaws onto Timaeus's stomach, snapping and snapping his teeth, digging into bubbling red innards.
The alpha gave a distraught and agonized scream, and frantically scrabbled at the wanderer, who took advantage of the distraction to lock his jaws onto the alpha's throat and yank.
In an explosion of gore, bone and mess, Timaeus flopped to the ground with his betas, body twitching before it fell still.
The wanderer smiled with crimson smeared lips, and flecks of blood on his formerly pristine white fur.
Under his scrutiny, Ordri gritted her teeth. Her alpha had been defeated. Annihilated. By all rights, this wolf could take her. He could claim her as mate, as per the custom of the rite of challenge.
He strode up to Ordri, sniffing at her appreciatively. Pink eyes glimmered, and his clawed fingers brushed over her jacket.
“You're mine,” he growled.
Fear lanced Ordri's heart, along with a slither of grief and guilt. Grief for her dead husband, guilt that she had never loved him. Now he lay dead and bleeding upon the ground.
All because this wanderer desired her. Because she desired her mate’s demise.
“Mine,” he repeated softly. His fingers became tight and painful.