Claimed by the Alpha (2 page)

Chapter Three

The picturesque inn was all Luka Stanislav promised it would be. A roaring fire blazed in a central hearth, casting orange and yellow shadows like dancing sprites across the scarred and battered wooden floor. The warm, homey smell of freshly baked biscuits and the hearty barley seasoning of a simmering stew filled the air. Small carafes of what she assumed to be the famous honey vodka sat on brightly painted ceramic candle warmers on each table and a grandmotherly woman was at the door to greet them.

She wore a bright red apron, elegantly embroidered with dragons in greens, blues and purples over a modest black peasant blouse and long skirt. Her white hair was pulled into a loose bun at the top of her head and fey flyaway wisps framed her rounded face. Small, delicate rosebud pink lips curved in a smile when she saw them and genuine pleasure lit her face with a slight blush.

“Luka!” she greeted in English.

“Magda,” he replied kissing both her powdered cheeks in return.

“You have come for the stew, I know this.” She nodded. “And you must have some honey vodka.” Magda led them to a table and Stanislav pulled Marijka’s chair out for her.

Magda beamed like a proud mother. “He is a good boy, my Luka?” she said to Marijka.

“Yes, a gentleman.” Marijka couldn’t imagine anyone calling this beast of a man a boy. Let alone a
good
boy. As if he were some child who’d brought home good marks and carried groceries for an old woman.

“Stew for you, too. You’re too skinny,
vnucka
.”

The word for
granddaughter
immediately made her homesick for Baba Zoranna and Marijka was putty in her strong hands. “Yes,
babicka
,” she said, addressing her as
grandmother
as a sign of respect. Magda rewarded her with a broad smile and left to get their food.

This little inn—only blocks away from the horror of her dead partner, mutating viruses and slavering wolves—was a haven. It was as if nothing could breach those stone walls and touch her here. The warmth of tradition and comfort of the familiar things of her childhood were a strange armor.

Marijka exhaled a heavy breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“You are safe here. No rogue wolf can pass through these walls. I swear this.” He poured her a shot of the vodka and pushed it toward her, his eyes sincere.

Their fingers brushed as she accepted the liquid fortification and Marijka swore she could actually see the flicker of molten gold when their fingertips sparked against each other. The heat that shot through her at the contact was hotter than any fire.

“How do you know this?”

He laughed, a low, rich sound.

“Because the inn is empty.”

The hand holding the warm vodka trembled and she downed the elixir. What was left unsaid terrified her more that the words he spoke. Marijka wanted to be very sure she understood exactly what he meant. “Meaning?”

“There are no townspeople here. There were none on the streets but the police and they left soon after we arrived. The infection has spread, Marijka Zolinski. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker all run beneath the moon tonight. They all dine on flesh—and if you hadn’t come with me, it would have been
your
flesh for their meal.”

She slammed the glass down on the table. “And you couldn’t have told me that?” Marijka hissed.

Luka shrugged. “No, I couldn’t. It is the law you must ask for my protection of your own free will.”

“Whose law?”

“The Aeternali—the Great Treaty.” He said this as if it were something she should already know.

“How do you know there’s infection here? Is it only this strain of lycanthropy, or the CJD?”

“It’s what I was sent to investigate. They don’t all change under the moon. Some change and some are like the walking dead with bloodshot eyes and slavering human mouths, though their bite is infectious all the same. Even to other werewolves.”

“Is Magda immune?” Marijka asked carefully.

“She is...” He trailed off and shrugged again. “Magda is something different. She is safe.”

A lone howl sounded outside the inn door and Marijka closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. She poured herself another shot and downed it. The warmed vodka was sweet from the honey and went down easy—smooth like Tennessee whiskey.

Until one howl merged into many and she heard the demonic chorus from earlier. The wolves were inside the town limits. Bolder than any other pack, but Marijka supposed when the entire town was infected they didn’t have to hide.

If the infection were like this here, what was she going to find in Ostrava? What had Evan thought
he
would find? In his last message, he’d said the answers would be in Ostrava.

“Are you afraid, Marijka Zolinski?” He watched her, his eyes suddenly bright. “They can smell the stench of it on you. Even through these stone walls.”

Marijka narrowed her eyes at him, there was a certain knowledge—an excitement in his tone. It was in the strange light in his eyes and the tension of his body. She jumped back from her chair, drew her 9mm and aimed it at his chest. “Don’t fuck with me, Stanislav. Aeternali or no, I’ll blow a hole in your chest so wide even their necromancers won’t be able to stitch you back together.”

A slow smirk curved his mouth and he laid his palms flat on the table where she could see them. “
Malenkaya
, I promised you were safe with me. I am an enforcer for the Aeternali. Why shouldn’t the prospect of a fight heat my blood?”

“Stop calling me that,” she snapped.

“Why? Next to me, you are
little one
,” he said, his accent thicker. The smirk grew.

“Next to you, a wooly mammoth would be
little one
.” She holstered her gun but didn’t sit back down.

He nodded carelessly. “Perhaps.” Then all pretense of civility was gone as he stood and in its place was the Alpha male. His very presence made it hard to breathe. “And perhaps I should take you upstairs, Marijka Zolinski, and I should make you forget all about the wolves and the virus. Forget everything but me.”

A shiver of delight curled behind the fear, making her hot. A blush suffused her cheeks, and she thought of all the things he could do to her to make her forget. All the reasons she wanted to forget.

And all the reasons why she couldn’t.

She’d been propositioned a hundred times over, but no male had moved her like this one did. He was bold, confident, and his advances weren’t unwelcome.

He raked his hard gaze over her once more. “I can sense your desire just as they sense your fear. What’s it to be, Gypsy girl?” He yanked her against him roughly and the heat of his hands on her skin was a brand. “A night of fear waiting out rabid dogs in a hard wooden chair or a night of pleasure in front of a warm fire with the taste of honey and my kiss on your lips?”

“I suppose those lines get you laid a lot, enforcer?” Although, her retort lost its sting when she didn’t push him away. Instead, she licked her lips, imagining his mouth on hers, him naked in the firelight and intent on her pleasure.

He leaned in, his sinful mouth so close to giving her the kiss she craved. “I suppose they would. But I don’t need pretty words or soft lies. If you do not want it, say no and we’ll be about our business of eating, of waiting. It is your choice, just as it was in the alley. Come with me, or do not come. It is up to you.” Luka lifted one of her dark curls slowly and it wrapped around his finger, clinging to him as she longed to do.

Marijka caught the double entendre. There were a million reasons to say no and only one to say yes. But that one reason trumped them all; she wanted Luka Stanislav. In that moment, she wanted his hands and mouth on her more than she wanted anything else.

“And what is your punishment if you don’t make me forget, Stanislav?” Marijka braced her palms on his powerful shoulders, the fine weave of his handmade shirt smooth beneath her fingers.

Luka looked up from where he studied that errant curl. He splayed his hand wide on the small of her back and scraped his lightly stubbled cheek against hers to whisper in her ear. “Then I will be at your mercy, Officer Zolinski.”

Marijka had trouble imagining him being at anyone’s mercy, but the idea of mastering him fueled the burn between her thighs. “Be careful what you offer. You may find yourself Gypsy-cursed,” she whispered against the corner of his mouth.

“Alternatively, I may find myself Gypsy-
blessed
when you’re screaming my name, pretty Marijka. Baptized by the fire I know burns between those thighs.”

She despised his arrogance, but knew intrinsically it was something more than Alpha posturing. He’d do everything he promised and she’d love every minute of it.

But Marijka couldn’t let him out match her. She was just as formidable. “Are you going to bark all night or bite, enforcer?”

A low growl began in the back of his throat and she wondered for a moment if she’d pushed him too far—if she were about to see exactly what kind of beast lurked beneath his skin. The heat coming off him was blistering and her anticipation was like a fine red wine, sweet with dark notes of fear and lust.

His teeth raked over the tender place between her neck and her shoulder and he bit down, just as she’d demanded. She pushed her fingers through his hair, but guided him closer rather than away. Knees weak, she melted against him. His mouth scorched her as he suckled where he’d bitten. The sensation shot stabs of pleasure straight to her clit.

Luka lifted her easily and she locked her legs around his waist. He braced one forearm beneath her ass and his other anchored her against his chest as he headed for the stairs. Marijka bit him back in the same place he’d bitten her, her blunt teeth marking him.

Another growl issued from deep in his chest and it was a powerful rush to know she’d forced him to betray just that tiny bit of his human veneer. She wondered what it would take to make him shed it completely and what she’d find beneath. Marijka bit him again, this time on his neck, and his grip on her tightened.

“You play with fire,” he said in a voice reverberating with power.

“And I’m burning in it, Luka.”

He took her mouth hard, but his kiss held no tenderness, no soft seduction. It was all blatant claiming and primal lust. He tasted of things she didn’t know could be in a kiss—the taste of scents and visions, things she never imagined would be so sweet. The dark, loamy earth, the crystal chill of moonlight on water, and the very night itself.

Luka kicked a door open and rather than putting her down on the bed, she found herself braced against the wall. He made quick work of her tailored silk blouse and the lace cups of her bra—tore them from her and freed her breasts for his attention. Luka bent his head and took one pebbled nipple into his mouth. He raked his teeth lightly over the sensitive bud just as he’d done at her neck, and then sucked and licked the puckered flesh.

Every flick of his tongue sent waves of carnal bliss careening through her and as the howls echoed again through the darkness, Marijka found she didn’t care. Nothing mattered at this moment but having Luka Stanislav inside her.

She tore at the buttons of his shirt, desperate to have more of his warm, golden skin, and she pushed the material over the wide expanse of his shoulders where she saw five scars that ran from his shoulder down across to his torso to his hip. It looked as if he’d ripped open by some kind of beast.

He lifted his head to meet her eyes and Marijka spread her palm wide and her hand couldn’t come anywhere near covering the edges of the scar. Her first thought was
werewolf
, but then he’d be infected. He’d be running the night with them, not here in this room with her.

“Are they ugly to you, Marijka?” he asked as he carried her to the bed, still licking at her neck.

She liked how he was still so sure of himself, sure of her want of him even if she had found his scars ugly.

“Only in that they would have inflicted much pain.”

His dark eyes seemed to take on a new light, something predatory, and she shivered beneath him.

“They did inflict much pain. To the beast that dealt them.”

“Did you kill it?”

“Yes,” he answered with no hesitation as he pulled her slacks down her long legs.

“Good.”

His granite-hard mouth curved into a smile. “So bloodthirsty.” Luka’s lips grazed the inside of her knee and she shivered at the jolts of ecstasy such a small caress could create. “Are you cold, Gypsy girl?”

She swallowed hard. “No.” Even the brush of his warm breath against her skin was intoxicating.

“No? Then what?” He bent his head to continue exploring her with his mouth and she shivered again. “You tremble as if pleasures of the flesh are new to you.”

“They might as well be. It’s been a long time,” she confessed.

He hooked his fingers through the edges of her panties and pulled them from her limbs with ease. “No man measures up to your expectations, does he?” Luka slid his tongue into her wet depths and licked up to her clit. “Because you were meant for more. Meant for an Alpha.
Me
.” His tongue staked his claim as thoroughly as his words.

And what pretty words they were, as if there were more for them than this night—these hours that were a haven from the horror of the night and the things that lurked there. Marijka was under no illusion this would be anything more.

Yet the way he spoke those words told her
he
believed them.

Perhaps they were true for the moment and just for now; she belonged to him and he to her. She was wet and aching; and only he could ease her torment.

Marijka arched into his caress and buried her hands in his golden hair, urging him closer to his task. His broad fingers curled around her thighs and he spread her legs wider—increased the pressure of his talented tongue.

She moved against his mouth, desperate for more, even though she was already on the edge. It had just been too damn long. Marijka had no doubt he was up to the task of bringing her off again. She surrendered to the bliss as it clawed at her, sharp and hungry—a beast ready to consume her. Marijka shuddered as the ecstasy invaded her and danced with every nerve ending and permeated every cell.