The Burning Claw: Book 10, The Grey Wolves Series (10 page)

Alina watched him leave and felt some of the pain dissolve from her heart. She sat back down on the couch with an unbecoming plop for an Alpha female. Alina nearly laughed. It felt good to almost laugh. And then she did laugh because it was hilarious that she thought feeling like almost laughing was funny. Her daughter-in-law would say she’d fallen off the deep end. She might be right.

“The only place you are falling is into my arms.”
She heard Vasile’s voice through their bond.

“My love, if that was your idea of a pick-up line, you should tuck your tail and head the other direction because that was just awful. Almost, Jen would say, creepy awful.”

He laughed and Alina felt his humor and it relaxed her even more.

“You’ve done your duties as Alpha and mother. Now come take care of your mate,”
he growled at her. She knew he was teasing her—sort of.

“Sorry, Alpha, but I think I hear Thia calling my name. She obviously has need of her aunt.”

Vasile huffed, making her smile widen.

“And what of my need of you?” His voice came from behind her where he stood in the doorway.

She stood and slowly walked to him. He held the other half of her soul and that connection pulled her to him like the moon pulled the tide.  Once she’d reached him, he didn’t hesitate. He wrapped a muscular arm around her waist and pulled her against him. After all the decades upon decades that they’d been mated, being in Vasile’s arms never got old.

He leaned down and pressed his mouth over the bite that marked her as his. He nipped it and then kissed the flesh. His mouth traveled up her neck and stopped right beside her ear. Vasile’s warm breath blew across her skin and Alina sucked in a sharp breath. After all the decades, he hadn’t lost his effect on her.

“I think little Thia can wait,” he whispered in her ear, his lips brushing lightly against her flesh.

Alina couldn’t think straight, not when he seduced her and made it very clear that he still wanted her after all these years.

“Thia can wait,” she heard herself agreeing.

Later she might be embarrassed by the fact that her mate had shut the door behind him, locked it, and then proceeded to finish what he’d started. Yes, later she might feel that way—much, much later.

B
ethany walked slowly around the suite that Decebel had provided for her and Drake. Jen had led the couple through a maze of twisting hallways nearly twenty minutes ago, Drake holding her hand and grumbling the entire way. With a warning to Drake to steer clear of the rest of the pack, Jen had slammed the door on them and Bethany distinctly heard the words
fleabag
and
neuter
through the door as the blonde stomped away. Drake had told Bethany to make herself at home, muttered something about smelling like a mangy mutt, and headed through a doorway that she guessed led to the bedroom. She’d heard the shower come on and decided to explore the suite while no one was watching her every move—not that she minded Drake’s eyes on her, but it did make her feel a little self-conscious.

As she surveyed her surroundings, she could tell that no one lived in this suite. There was no warmth. No pictures adorned the walls. No little mementos decorated the end tables or shelves on the walls. No memories had been made in this place. As she stared at her sparse surroundings, her mind wandered, bringing her back for a fleeting instant to her own home. She could smell fresh bread baking and see pictures, drawn in crayon, stuck to a white refrigerator. Tears slid into her eyes as, for only a moment, Bethany remembered her own home. She reached out desperately, trying to catch hold of the memory—to feel again the warmth, the love from her family—but it was gone.

As the memory faded, she noticed that the furniture in this room was very large. The couch was brown leather and there were two matching chairs on either side. The end tables looked as though they’d been made by hand out of wood that had been hand cut. Each was unique and beautiful. The coffee table was the same—hand cut wood with the knots from the tree visible in some places. Bethany walked over to the windows that lined the back wall. The curtains were made out of a soft, but thick brown fabric, unlike anything she’d felt before.

“They’re suede,” a deep voice rumbled from behind her.

She looked over her shoulder to find Drake in a pair of jeans pulling a red t-shirt over his head. He’d been shirtless the entire time he’d been in the cage, but for some reason, seeing him outside of the cage, freshly showered, had a different effect upon her. Her cheeks warmed and she turned back to examine the suede curtains.

“Brown seems to be a favored color,” she said teasingly.

He chuckled. “Our own rooms are decorated to our taste, but this, this one was set up as a generic suite for visiting guests. I guess they wanted neutral colors.”

“The color isn’t bad…it just feels empty,” she told him. “Not super inviting, I mean.”

“You can change whatever you want.”

Bethany turned around, her eyes wide. “Change?”

His hand swept over the room. “If there’s anything you don’t like, you can pick something different.”

“But this isn’t your suite,” she pointed out, as if he didn’t know.

Drake walked toward her, his steps slow as though not to startle her. Bethany wanted to roll her eyes. She wasn’t a frightened rabbit. Wait, maybe he saw her as a rabbit. “Do you see me as a rabbit?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

He paused his pursuit and tilted his head slightly. Seeming to come to a conclusion, he continued forward. Once he was standing less than a foot away, he reached up and placed a hand on her neck wrapping his fingers around the back while his thumb stroked the sensitive skin just below her chin. “First, I would like it to be our suite—a place we can both call home—a place of warmth that reflects our shared lives. Second, I see you as my mate and I would never describe someone as brave as you as a frightened rabbit.” He paused as he continued to stare down at her. His touch was affecting her in ways that she didn’t really understand, but she liked. “I will sleep on the couch and you can take the bedroom.”

Bethany tilted her head to the side to look at the couch. Sure, it was big, but not long enough for Drake to stretch out comfortably on. She shook her head. “No, I can take the couch. I’ll fit better on it than you will.”

“I want you to feel comfortable and safe, Bethy. And I’d prefer to sleep between you and the front door.”

He wanted to protect her, Bethany realized. Jen had been right; these werewolves took protection to a whole new level. Assuming any argument would likely be fruitless and only stress him out or cause more problems, she consented.

“Alright, if that is what you want,” she told him, staring up into his eyes that, though some might call grey, she saw as a shimmery silver color.

“Sometimes what we want and what we need are miles apart,” he told her. “I want to be able to give you space so that you don’t feel smothered. I know that you are probably still very confused. But I need to know you’re safe and I need to be near you. That is not something that I can change. That is an instinct that is controlled by the wolf.”

Bethany could tell that those words had been difficult for him to say. She felt through the bond that Drake was ashamed.

“Is it really shameful to need someone?” she asked him, truly wondering. Because if so, then she should feel ashamed too because she was rapidly coming to understand that she needed him as well. He made her feel wanted, safe, and cared for. Those were things she had not felt in a very long time. Drake gave her somewhere to belong again—a new family, a replacement for her family that had been ripped away from her. She didn’t want to feel ashamed of needing him.

“No,” he answered quickly and pulled her closer to him.

She could feel the warmth from his body seeping out of him and into her. She wanted to get closer, so she did. Bethany took another step, closing the gap between them so that their bodies were now touching. Drake froze. She didn’t even think he was breathing. Had she done something wrong? She started to take a step back but Drake dropped his hand from her neck and wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. She held back the sigh of relief his embrace brought, but just barely.

“There is no shame in needing someone, Bethany.” His voice was rough with emotion and that same emotion filled his eyes. “I am ashamed because I feel like I am taking your choices from you. I don’t want you to feel like you went from one prison to another. I fear that you will one day resent me if I don’t let you go and experience life before deciding to commit to me.”

She blinked several times as she mulled over his words. She understood what he was saying, but she also thought that there could be a way where they could both get the things they needed.

She took a breath before looking back up at him. “If I want to go back to America, would you come with me?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

“And if I want to go to” —she thought about the few countries that she could remember learning about when she was a girl— “China, would you go with me?”

“Yes.”

“And if I wanted to get my first cell phone, will you help me get one?”

“Of course,” he answered.

“And if I decided, after all the time we’d spent together, to leave, to live a different life than this one, would you let me go?”

His answer did not come as quickly this time. “I” —he swallowed— “I would if I could. If you didn’t want to be with me…I would let you go.”

Bethany believed him, but she could tell that there was something he wasn’t telling her. “But?” she coaxed. “What are you not saying, Drake?”

He closed his eyes. “I love it when you say my name.”

“Don’t try to distract me,” Bethany said dryly.

After several seconds, Drake opened his eyes. “I
would
let you go, but…” He emphasized the word. “In order for that to happen, I would have to request that my Alpha put me down.”

“Put you down where?” she asked. Her brow furrowed deeply and her lips thinned. She didn’t like the sound of that.

“I don’t want this knowledge to sway you, love. I want you to make whatever decision you feel is best for you, not based on my actions or reactions.”

“Please, Drake, tell me what that means.”

Drake sighed. It was heavy, as though he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. “It means he would have to kill me.”

She jerked back out of his arms. “What?” Her voice rose an octave and filled up the room.

“We are not human, Bethany. We do not respond to things as humans do. We are Canis lupus and we have our own ways. I know it’s hard to understand them if you’ve not grown up with them your whole life.”

She didn’t even know what to say. She literally held his life in the palm of her hands. “So, if I choose to walk away—” She took in a quick breath. Bethany’s hands were shaking and she didn’t understand why. “That would mean the end of your life? Just like that?”

Drake’s shoulders were tense and his mouth drawn into a hard line. He looked as if he’d rather eat nails than have this conversation. But Bethany wasn’t going to let it go. It was just too important.

“We should probably sit down for this conversation.” He motioned to the large, and suddenly inviting, couch.

She sat on one end, turning her body so that one leg was pulled up on the side while the other dangled. Drake sat, but he didn’t lean back. Instead, his elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward. His hands were clasped together and his chin rested on the fist they made. It took so long for him to begin speaking that Bethany was kind of worried there would be a vampire apocalypse before she got the answers from him, but after several long minutes, he finally spoke.

“When a wolf finds his true mate, he has found the one woman he will spend his life living for or dying for—the only woman. She holds the other half of the male’s soul, and he holds hers. We mate for life, literally. If a mated pair has completed the Bonding Rites, then their fates are tied. If one dies, so does the other. We cannot live without our mate.”

That last sentence was said as if Bethany had asked him to live without air. And maybe she had.