Chapter 4
“Change is hard. The results of the change aren’t necessarily bad, but going through everything that must happen in order for the change to come about—that’s hard. And sometimes terrifying.” ~Bethany
Bethany stepped into the room after several minutes of giving herself a pep talk. Jen had gone in first, said some choice words to the caged werewolf, and then marched right back out muttering something about neutering fur balls and making Christmas ornaments out of chestnuts. Bethany didn’t have a clue what any of that meant, and her attention had been quickly drawn away from Jen’s retreat when a deep voice called her name.
“Bethany.” Her name being said by that voice sent a shiver of awareness through her.
As soon as she looked at the cage and the area immediately around it and in it, Bethany understood why Jen had stormed off in a huff. Drake had literally broken the concrete and attempted to dig out from under the cage. There were large pieces of concrete thrown about along with smaller bits. And had the bars not run all the way through the ground, he would have succeeded. And, depending on how deep those bars went, he might still succeed if he continued to try.
Her eyes finally met his after she’d thoroughly examined the room. Drake was taking her in like a blind man able to see for the first time. His eyes ran from her feet all the way up her body until they met hers again.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
Bethany nodded. She was unsure of what to say. She didn’t want to set him off now that he seemed to be calm. He growled. Okay, so apparently he wasn’t as calm as he appeared.
“Come here,” he commanded roughly. When she didn’t move, Drake ran a hand through his hair and took a slow, deep breath. “I would never hurt you. I just…I.” He paused and then met her eyes again. “Touch is very important to wolves—especially between mates. It doesn’t have to be sexual. It can be something as simple as holding hands. It’s reassuring. I need to touch you—to feel that you are indeed okay.”
She could hear the sincerity in his voice and feel the truth through the bond she was beginning to recognize. If she was honest with herself, she’d admit that the bond she felt between them—the connection—made her feel safe. She was never alone. Even when she’d been walking through a strange house filled with werewolves, he was with her. Bethany knew that if she was going to try and make this new life work, then she’d have to take risks. Trusting a complete stranger who claimed to want to be with her forever was definitely a risk, but she had to start somewhere.
She walked over to the cage and took the hand Drake had held out through the bars. As soon as his skin touched hers, she relaxed. The breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding slipped out of her and her heartbeat began to slow.
Drake leaned close to her and took a deep breath. “You smell good.”
She was pretty sure her face was bright red. “I think that’s the shampoo and soap.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m talking about your scent, unique to you and something only I can detect. You smell of honeysuckle and vanilla.”
Bethany found herself leaning in closer to him wanting to see if she could smell his scent as well. She pressed her nose close to his neck and shivered when a low rumble came from his chest. When she breathed in, the scent of pine and earth filled her lungs. It drew her memory back to a time when her family had hiked through the woods, just before she’d been taken. She pushed that memory away and focused on the here and now. “You smell good too,” she confessed a little shyly.
When she pulled back, her breath caught at the smile on his face. He was handsome regardless, but his smile was breathtaking. He lifted his hand and ran the tips of his fingers down her cheek. Bethany fought the urge to close her eyes and purr at the contact. It had been so long since she’d been touched in any way other than by force and violence.
“No one will ever put their hands on you again and cause you pain or harm,” Drake promised, having heard her thoughts.
“I believe you,” she told him honestly.
After several heartbeats, Drake motioned behind her. “I had them bring you a chair.”
Bethany turned and saw the padded chair sitting several feet from the cage. She walked over and grabbed it, dragging it and turning it sideways so that when she sat in it she could lean her shoulder against the bars.
Drake turned and pressed his back to the bars and slid down to the floor. His head was level with her knees. His hand snaked out through the bars and wrapped around her small ankle. The warmth from his flesh soaked into her, and she could feel it clear up to her stomach where it hovered, like her own internal furnace.
“What’s it like?” she asked him once he seemed to be settled.
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Bethy,” he said in a teasing tone. The use of her nickname caused her breath to catch. She knew he’d heard it when he squeezed her ankle gently.
“Being a wolf, turning into a wolf. What’s it like?”
“Well, I don’t turn into a wolf. He’s a part of me and I’m part of him. I no more turn into a wolf than he turns into a man. We call it phasing when we change forms. I am fully man and fully wolf when I wear my fur. I can think and reason like a man, but I’m driven by the wolf’s instincts. Likewise, in skin form, he can hunt and protect, but he’s driven by the man’s rationality. But to answer your question, it feels…freeing, like shedding a shirt that was too tight.”
“Would you rather stay in your wolf form rather than your human one?” Bethany had to admit she was fascinated by the passion in his voice.
He turned his head and looked up at her. “Maybe at one time I would have, but not now. If I was in my wolf form all of the time, I wouldn’t be able to hold you.”
She felt her face flush. Bethany was about to ask another question but sucked in a breath and froze when she heard Drake’s low, deadly growl and felt the hand that had been on her ankle leave only to return up to her knee. Drake pushed the fabric where the slit was located on her skirt over her knee revealing her leg from hip to knee. She was pretty sure her heart stopped beating the second she felt his finger begin to trace the marks that now decorated her flesh.
“Mine,” he rumbled in a voice she didn’t quite recognize.
When she finally dared to look down at his face, she saw that his eyes were glowing. “Drake,” she breathed out. He just kept tracing the marks up her thigh, ending on her hip. It was as though he was in a trance. She watched as he leaned forward, his eyes flicking up to hers and holding them captive as his lips pressed firmly against her skin right in the middle of her thigh.
When Drake pulled back, he grabbed the fabric and pulled it over her knee and across her leg to cover the markings as much as possible.
He cleared his throat and then spoke, though the growl remained. “Those markings, they are meant for my eyes only. I do not know if I could keep my wolf under control if another male saw them.” He took a deep breath as if bracing himself for something. “Did anyone see you walking back?”
Her brow scrunched together as she frowned at him. “No, Jen promised she would keep the other males away. We didn’t encounter anyone.”
“You will learn that Jen sometimes says what you want to hear, not what she’s necessarily going to do.”
Bethany placed her hand on his bare shoulder and squeezed just as he’d done to her ankle. “No one saw me, Drake—only you.”
Drake let out an audible breath. He knew he was probably freaking her out by his possessiveness, but it wasn’t an instinct he could curb, not even to put Bethany at ease. Her markings were right there, on her beautiful thigh, relatively uncovered. He’d noticed them when the slit in her skirt had separated as she moved, and the sight had caused his wolf to surge forward before Drake could stop him. He shouldn’t have touched her, not in such an intimate way. But his wolf could only think of one thing—mine. Over and over it was a mantra in his mind. She was theirs and the markings that matched his own were just another sign.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable when I touched you,” he said quietly, hoping she could feel his sincerity. He wasn’t sorry he’d touched her, but he didn’t want to scare her.
“It didn’t make me uncomfortable in the way you are thinking,” she said bluntly. “It felt nice.”
Drake’s blood began to heat as her words registered in his very male mind. She liked his touch on her bare skin. She said it felt nice. Of course, in his mind he had heard, it felt amazing, I need you, I want you, touch me again. He clenched his jaw together. Get a grip, he growled to himself, making sure there were some boundaries up in his mind so she couldn’t hear his inner dialogue
“Did you have any more questions? Or is there anything you would like to talk about?” Drake asked, attempting to ease the tension in his body.
“Where do you live?”
“I live here, in the mansion. Most of the pack does, though there are a few who have their own dens.”
“Dens?”
“Houses,” he explained. “Sorry, I tend to think of it as my wolf does, like a den. I have a suite here, like all the other members of the pack. We tend to stick together. We thrive on being a family— all connected through the pack bonds.”
“Will I be connected?” Bethany asked
“Once we are bonded,” he answered, looking up at her. “Yes, you will be connected to the pack.”
Drake loved how straightforward she was. For the most part, she wasn’t easily embarrassed and that impressed the hell out of him and his wolf. She was strong. She would make a worthy mate and their offspring would be strong as well.
“Do you think you can come out now?”
Drake’s eyes lowered to her thigh where the markings were and then to the bite mark on her neck where he’d claimed her. She was his. There was no way to dispute it. He searched his wolf’s thoughts to see if these things would appease him until they could complete the bond. Drake found that his wolf was definitely calmer now that they’d seen her markings. Though he had to push his wolf back because all he wanted to do was lick the markings from knee to hip and he was pretty sure Bethany would not be okay with that.
“I think I can. As long as no males come near you. I know it’s—”
Bethany held her hand up and pressed her fingers to his lips to stop him. “It’s alright. I don’t know anything about relationships, Drake. I have nothing to compare this to. It’s new ground for both of us, right?” She smiled at him causing his heart to skip a beat.
“Right.” He nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “Okay. Yes, I’d like to be released and take you to my suite where we’d both be more comfortable. Jen had one of the males leave a phone.” He pointed to the object lying on the ground next to the door. “Could you hand it to me, please?”
Bethany stood up from the chair and her leg slipped enticingly through the slit in the skirt. Nope, that wasn’t going to work. As soon as she was standing next to the cage with her hand held out, offering him the phone, Drake reached through the bars with both hands and grabbed the waistband of the skirt. He turned it until the slit was on the left side of her body. He didn’t like the idea of anyone seeing her bare thigh, let alone the one with the markings, but he realized quickly that if he turned it so the slit was in the back it would nearly show her bottom.
Bethany gasped at his quick movements but didn’t step away. “Better?” she asked.
His lips lifted slightly as he took the offered phone. “Better. Not great, but better.”
She smiled at him and continued to watch him as he dialed a number and waited for the voice on the other end.
“What,” Jen snapped.
“I’m ready to be released,” Drake said coolly.
“Yeah, well there’s a man in hell who wants ice water, so get in line.”
Drake heard a low growl and then the sound of Decebel’s voice. “Let me talk to him.”
Jen growled back at her mate. “Fine, but Peri has to be the one to open the cage and she’s a little busy with, you know, trying to save my best friend and her fleabag, so it could be a little while. And if she does release him, he might go all Planet of the Apes on our asses.”
“Planet of the Apes?” Decebel asked.
Jen groans. “Yes, because the apes went crazy and started killing the humans. Good grief, man, what do you do in your spare time? Say it with me Dec…Netflix is my friend.”
Decebel said something that Drake couldn’t understand and then Jen was gone, replaced by his Alpha on the phone.
“Drake.”
“I’ve seen my markings on her flesh. She bears my bite. It is enough for now, Alpha. As long as no males approach her,” Drake explained.
“I’m going to have you moved to a suite on the west side of the mansion. That side of the mansion is relatively empty, so there is less chance of encountering any of the males. Give me a few minutes.”
“It will only be a few minutes until you can get the high fae?” Drake asked.
Decebel cleared his throat. “My mate likes to stir up trouble. When she’s stressed, then she wants everyone else stressed.”
“Damn right I do.” Drake heard in the background.
Decebel continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Peri set the magic for your cage, and normally she would have to be the one to open it. But I’ve just returned from checking on the condition of Fane and Jacque. While I was there, Peri asked about Bethany. The fae transferred to me the ability to open the cage. She wanted to make sure that you could be freed if something happens to her. She’s eccentric, but she isn’t cruel.”
“Yes, she is.” He heard Jen’s voice again. “She’s cruel and she will chop you up and serve you for dinner if you hurt one hair on any of my wolves.”
Choosing once again to ignore his mate, Decebel said into the phone, “I’ll be in touch soon. You and your mate get ready for a change of scenery.”
The call ended and Drake tossed the phone back through the bars where it landed on a pile of sweatpants.
“We’re leaving?” Bethany asked him sounding hopeful. Drake felt like crap that she’d had to endure being confined in a room on the concrete floor because he couldn’t stand to be away from her.
“Yes,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Decebel is going to give us a suite on the west side of the mansion. It’s a little more secluded than the rest.”
“West side?” Her eyebrows rose. “How big is this place?”
His lips twitched. “Big enough for a pack of werewolves.”
She snorted out a laugh.
Drake’s smile slipped away as he watched her. “Beth, are you alright?”
She looked up at him through the bars that kept him from holding her. “I don’t know, Drake. But I think I will be.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “That will have to be good enough for now.”
Jen sat at one of the intricately carved tables in the archive room as Wadim tapped away on a keyboard while staring at his fifty computer screens. Okay so maybe there weren’t fifty, but crap, how many computer screens does one werewolf historian really need?
“Finding anything of use, history boy?” Jen asked absently as she flipped through one of the large old books he’d stacked on the table for her.
“Honestly, Alpha chick, I don’t even know where to start.”
Jen tapped her lips with her forefinger as she considered his answer. “Okay, how about enemies? Who are the enemies of the werewolves, or yet” —she held up a hand— “even more specific, who are the enemies of our packs, the Serbia and Romania packs?”
“Vampires,” Wadim said dryly.
“Do we really think the vampires could have taken her right out from under all of our noses without anyone noticing?”
“Wasn’t there a battle going on?” Wadim asked.
“Yes, but a vampire would have had to weave his way through all that fighting and Sally wouldn’t have gone quietly. She would have fought like a hellcat. Someone would have noticed. We do tend to watch each other’s backs during battles.”
“Well.” Wadim let out a heavy sigh. “I know this sounds crazy, but there is only one supernatural race that I know of that can make people disappear without a sound, and that’s the fae.” Wadim stared at her with his eyebrows raised. “I mean pixies can move undetected when they want, that’s for sure, and they have some dead useful magic, but kidnapping a powerful healer without anyone else being the wiser, I don’t see it. Which leads me to believe that it has to have been a fae. I mean…maybe Volcan has gotten involved.”
“Hmm, no, I think he’s got his hands full with the healers he’s already nabbed and the werewolves hunting him. He doesn’t need Sally,” Jen answered.
“She’s a gypsy healer,” Wadim said more to himself.
“Way to state the obvious, Sherlock,” Jen muttered.
“I’m not done making my point, Barbie,” he said curtly.
Jen chuckled. “Oooo, look at history furball being all snarky and stuff. It’s hot.”
“Why do you always end up calling some male hot when I’m not around,” Decebel growled as he stepped out of the dark stairwell.
Jen glanced up at him. “Why were you lurking in the stairwell like a creeper? Where’ve you been anyway? One minute you were next to me as we tromped through Vasile’s castle, and the next you’d disappeared.”
“I wasn’t lurking, female. I was texting my girlfriend so she’d know not to call me right now. Did you miss me?” Decebel’s eyes danced with mischief as he stared her down.
Jen noticed Wadim trying to look especially busy.
“Tell her I said hi,” Jen said in a much too perky voice. “And that I will rip her face off and eat it in front of her if I ever figure out who she is. And” —she paused licking her finger to turn the page of the book she wasn’t even reading— “no, I didn’t miss you. The librarian is plenty hairy and stinky enough to remind me of you.”
“Damn,” Wadim gasped under his breath.
Decebel rumbled with laughter. “You didn’t realize how bloodthirsty my Alpha female is, did you?”
“Only when I have to remind you that you are mine, and bitches better back off.” Jen flipped through the book, humming happily as if she hadn’t just threatened to eat a woman’s face—not that she believed for even a second that her mate had a girlfriend. Decebel had discovered how to get under her skin and was using it ruthlessly anytime she irritated him. Boy didn’t realize that he was poking an already pissed off wolf.
“Oh, I realize, mate. I just happen to find you irresistible when you get jealous even over my fake girlfriends.” His warm voice filled her mind and melted over her like warm butter.
Jen decided it wasn’t time to deal with their sexual build up, considering she had a friend missing and one not exactly alive. “Back to what history hottie was saying.” She shot Decebel a challenging glare. He simply shrugged and blew her a kiss.
Wadim cleared his throat. “Okay…um…right. So, Sally is a healer, of course. Healers have always been targeted in the past for their magic. Decebel, you know this. Healers are sought after by many, not just Volcan, because their magic is…” He paused seeming to consider his words. “It’s different. Pure in a way that other supernatural magic isn’t.
“You think someone wanted her specifically because she’s a gypsy healer?” Decebel asked as he walked further into the room.
“I’m certain of it,” the historian answered. “The question is, who?”
Jen slammed the book closed and dropped it on the desk, growling. “We aren’t any closer to finding her than we were three hours ago. What am I supposed to tell Costin?”
“We tell him we are doing everything we can to find her. That’s all we can do, Jennifer,” Decebel said calmly. “They will make a mistake, whoever did this, and when they do, we will find them.”
“Maybe, but how long will Sally suffer before they do?”
“How do we know she’s suffering?” he challenged. “Whoever has her might be treating her like a queen.”
“Right,” Jen scoffed. “Because kidnappers are always so kind to their victims. It’s more likely they’ve ripped her toenails off or locked her in a dungeon with rats. Bastards.”
Sally couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so hard. Her stomach muscles screamed from the abuse that had been inflicted upon them as Jericho entertained the nightly patrons. He was amazing at his job. He talked easily, flirted without shame, and treated people as though each of them was his top priority. It was truly a thing of beauty.
“How’d you like your first day of work?” Cross asked as she finished wiping down the end of the bar.
“It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” she admitted. “Jericho is—”
“Something to behold when he’s on,” Cross finished for her.
She nodded. “He definitely knows what he’s doing.”
“I’ll admit. You’re probably learning from the best bartender in the city. Take notes and one day you’ll be as good as he is. He makes a good living slinging liquor and winking at girls” —he paused— “and guys occasionally too.”
Sally laughed. “He’s shameless.”
“Here.” He held out a wad of cash. “These are your tips for tonight. You did good, kid. Now get on out of here and get some rest. We’ll see you tomorrow.” Cross looked behind her and spoke a little louder to be heard over the music that was still coming out of the jukebox. “Mikey, walk Sally home.”
“I don’t—” Sally began but Cross stopped her, holding up his hand.
“You work for me. I take care of what is mine. End of story.” With that, he turned back and headed to his office.
I take care of what is mine. Those words latched onto her like a wolf on a deer. They felt familiar somehow. What is mine, danced in her head over and over. A hand touched her elbow causing Sally to jump.
“Sorry, Miss Sally,” Mikey’s deep voice rumbled from beside her. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to see if you were ready to go?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” She took off her apron and folded it, placing it beneath the counter and then followed Mikey out the door. She called a quick goodbye to Jericho who was busy tallying his cash drawer.
Once they’d stepped outside, the fresh air filled her lungs and helped clear her head. They walked in companionable silence and, once they arrived at the door to her apartment building, she smiled up at her escort. “Thanks, Mikey, I appreciate it.”
“Any time, doll, sleep tight. See you tomorrow.” He waved and then headed back in the direction of the bar.
By the time Sally had taken a quick shower and brushed her teeth, she was ready to crash. Her eyes drooped heavily as she climbed into bed and, though her body was unbelievably tired, her mind was still spinning like a top. The words Cross had spoken to her—I take care of what is mine—rotated over and over in her mind. Sally fell asleep with them gnawing at her gut. She’d heard them before, somewhere, she knew it. But where, and from whom, she couldn’t remember.