To the Edge and Back [The Royal Wolves] (Siren Publishing Allure) (21 page)

“Hey, no telling tall tales to the new girl,” Janos protested, guiding her to a chair. “We’re actually here for a purpose,” he told his brother as he watched Ben retake his seat.

“Oh?” he asked, looking to them. “And what would this mysterious purpose be?” Ben enquired with a grin.

Mina grinned and nodded as she took a seat in the chair offered to her. “I seem to need a job,” she said very bluntly, “and Janos assured me that since I adore books, that you might possibly have a job opening for me?”

“You like books?” Ben asked, leaning forward, his attention fully on her now. “All right, tell me about your favorite book. I want to know what it meant to you, what you got from it, and if it changed anything in your life or how you viewed it.”

“Damn,” Janos said. “Sorry, love, didn’t realize there would be a test.”

She sighed and shook her head. “That is easy.
The Little Prince
is my favorite, written by
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the story of meeting a young prince in the Sahara. It has so many poignant memories, but my favorite line is ‘
On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
.’ One cannot see well except with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.” Her French was truly flawless, as though she had always spoken it.

Ben shared a look with Janos and lifted a brow. “Good choice,” he said softly. “What do you know about first editions?” he asked next.

Janos shifted, wondering just what that one was about. Of course he wanted to ask Mina about the book. Her choice was curious to him. The fact that it was one of his favorites meant that they would have something else to chat about.

“I’ve never seen one because I have only used the local library. However, I know they are very rare. They are the first print run of a novel.” She shrugged. “What else did you have to ask me?” she asked him with a grin and squeezed Janos’s hand gently in hers.

“When can you start, how many hours do you want, and is a thirty-percent staff discount good enough with the bonus that you can read on shift as long as all the clients are taken care of?” Ben asked with a grin.

“I can start next week, only as many hours as Janos gives at the club close to here because I need and want to be with him as much as possible,” she said with a smile, “and thirty percent is wonderful. It is far more than I could have ever expected, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Ben grinned at her and then looked to his brother. “Thanks, bro.” He chuckled. “Damn, I love having people that actually like books working here.”

Spinning his chair around, Ben pulled open one of the file cabinets and pulled out some forms. “You can either fill these all out now or tonight. Just get them back to me by your first shift, which, if I remember Janos’s schedule, will be tomorrow afternoon from four until closing. I’ll drop you off at the club and then you can head out with him,” he said, getting a nod from his brother.

She was all smiles. “I love books.” She did, too, and so him telling her that she had a job was a blessing in more ways than one. “I will fill these out later and bring them in with me tomorrow. For right now, however, I really would like to get our shopping done.” She reached out her hand to Ben. “Again, thank you so very much. Thank you for everything.”

Standing, Ben shook her hand before lifting it to kiss her fingertips again lightly. “You are most welcome,” he told her softly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mina, and welcome to the family.” He smiled, letting her hand go.

“Later, big brother,” Janos said, taking Mina’s hand in his, and tugged her out of the room. “See,” he said as the door shut behind them. “Told you he’d give you the job. You should never doubt your mate,” he teased, squeezing her fingers lightly.

“I will have to keep that in mind, Janos. However, there will have to be times where I disagree with you simply because I need and want to be able to have make-up sex with you.” She nodded. “Yes, that sounds so glorious, make-up sex.”

Chuckling at her, he shook his head. “We could just disagree on a bunch of stuff and then have a mini argument, agree to disagree, and then have make-up sex,” he suggested as he opened the car for her. “Or we could just have sex.” He grinned at her.

“See, now there is the best choice of everything, so I think that is how we will deal with it. We will just simply have sex, lots and lots and often.” She paused and frowned. “What about pregnancy? I am not on anything to not get pregnant, so what do we do?”

“You can’t get pregnant for a while,” he told her softly. “Wolves and humans can have children, but it takes about four months for all the pheromones and such to take effect on a human’s system. Even then it’s touch and go for another few months. If you were Wolf, the time gets cut down dramatically to about a month for our systems to be synchronized correctly and to get you pregnant.”

“But after that, how do we not get pregnant right away?” She smiled as she added, “Don’t get me wrong, I want your children, Janos. I want a whole houseful of children with you. However, I need you to know that I want time with you. I need time with you, just for us. I want to have time to just be young and in love and especially with the danger that we have right now without bringing innocent children into the world, yet.”

“There is birth control both for while you’re still human and ones for if and when you change. The Wolf ones are pretty potent and, for the first while until your body adjusts, kill your sex drive,” he told her.

He couldn’t lie to her and he wasn’t about to start hiding things either. “You’ll pretty much kick me to the curb for about three weeks straight and then, if what I’ve heard can be believed, we’ll need about a week in a locked room, no work, no phones, and no interruptions while you make up for it.” He grinned at that idea.

“Right, and by the way”—she turned and made him look at her—“I want to be changed. I want to be like you. I have made up my mind and I want forever, Janos, so you will just have to figure out how we change me and when we change me.”

She nodded deep in thought and then asked, “And three weeks without you?” She frowned but then added, “But we will figure it out, and by the way, just so you know, I won’t kick you out of our bed, because I love sleeping there with you, but most likely we won’t have sex if you say so.”

“Not a lick of it,” he muttered, “which you’d better make up for after the fact or I’m going to be damned cranky,” he told her. Leaning in, he kissed her softly. “I’ll talk to the brothers and see if they know of someone to help us figure out the change.”

“All right, Janos.” She patted his chest and grinned. “Sounds like a good idea. I look forward to knowing just how things work. In the meantime, we should likely get on birth control just so that we will have that so that there are no mistakes.” Because she knew that condoms would never work, not with the way that he more than doubled in size.

“You’re thinking about sex again,” he said with a grin, her eyes dilating, giving her away. “But you’re right. Unfortunately that’s all going to be on you, love. I feel bad though. I really wish there was some way for me to help out with that.” Unfortunately they’d yet to figure out how to make a condom for a Wolf.

“Don’t even go there. I happen to really, really love having you releasing deep down inside of me. I am more than willing to take the medication to take care of it.” She hadn’t, however, asked him. “What do you want to do? I hadn’t thought to ask you. Do you want children right away or are you all right with waiting?”

“Waiting is fine, Mina,” he said with a smile. “I’m perfectly willing to wait for whenever you are ready to have kids. Besides”—he moved a little closer and kissed the tip of her nose—“I like having you to myself for a few years without having to share you with our children.”

“Me, too, I think that having you alone with me for a while just us and getting to know every single thing about you is what we both need.” They needed to become a unit before they had children. “All right, so that choice is made, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a smile. Kissing her lightly, he stepped back. “Into the car, love, we have shopping to do and then we should head home.” Shutting her door after she slid in, Janos moved around and carefully, very carefully sat in his seat. 

“Are you all right?” she asked with a smirk, knowing why he was moving so carefully and slowly. “I can’t wait to go and shop with you, Janos. I want to experience everything with you, and this is only the start of these things, isn’t it?”

“I’m fine,” he said as he adjusted his zipper as carefully as he could so it wasn’t biting into him quite so badly.

“I hate shopping, just so you know. I like to go in, get what I need, and that’s it,” he told her. “But”—he sighed—“for you I’m making an exception. This is a rare thing, so you’d better enjoy it completely,” he added as he pulled out onto the street and headed toward the mall.

“I will enjoy it.” She hated to shop, too. “A mall?” She watched all of the people as they began to park and licked her dry lips. “I really don’t want to do a mall, but it makes sense. We can go in and get everything that we need and be in and out quickly.” Because the sooner they were out the sooner that they weren’t around the crowds and the sooner that they could get home and be together.

“One-stop shopping,” he said as he found a spot and parked. Gripping the steering wheel, he stared at the mall and the hordes of people. “I hate malls,” he muttered. Not for what she was likely thinking. Malls were bad for Wolves. Too many scents layered on top of other smells. It messed with their noses. He’d have to watch out for the perfume counters. Those could put him into shock for a week if they doused him.

“I hate malls, too,” she whispered and then told him, “I don’t like crowds. I know it’s really weird, but I really don’t like crowds.” She licked her lips and looked over at him. “Maybe we can go somewhere else? Go to a smaller shop, maybe even somewhere further outside of the city and closer to home?”

“We’d have to hit four different stores minimum,” he told her, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “All right, we go in, hit only the places we have to, and get out. That’s our mission. I have your list and we know you need a new jacket, too, on top of a few additional clothes. We can do this. You protect me from the perfume people and I’ll scare off the crowds, deal?” he asked, looking to her.

“Deal. We are very much a team, aren’t we?” They were more than that. They were two parts of the same whole. She was about to reach for the door handle and took a deep breath. “All right, I’m ready. Are you ready?”

Pocketing his keys, he looked to her. “We’re a unit, love, two halves of one whole.” He smiled at her. Touching his door handle, he nodded. “Ready,” he said and got out quickly before he changed his mind. Locking the car, he took her hand in his as they headed for the chaos and mayhem of the mall.

She walked hand in hand with him and then grinned up at him. “It is close to the holidays. Isn’t it a wonderful time of the year?” There was just something about Christmas time in New York.

Janos made a sound in his throat as he pulled open the door. “It’s interesting, to say the least,” he murmured as they were assaulted by the sounds of too many people talking and loud tunes playing over the speakers of the mall. Wincing slightly, he led her inside toward where the map of the mall was. Stopping, he did a quick scan and headed toward a store that sold winter clothing.

She watched everything that was happening around her and more than once slid in closer to him. When they entered the store, it was thankfully not that busy. “I guess everyone else has gotten their winter things earlier, haven’t they?” she teased as she looked up at him and then nodded. “All right, let’s find me a good winter coat, sturdy boots, and gloves and such so that I can go on midnight walks with you and our pets at home.” And by pets, she knew that he would understand what she meant.

“And a scarf, too, love, don’t want your beautiful neck getting cold,” he said softly with a smile as he ran his fingers up said portion of her anatomy. “I’m just glad it’s not packed. I’d likely have had to run screaming out of here if there had been more bodies than this here.”

She shivered as his fingers lightly touched the mark that he placed on her. “I think that you want me to wear a scarf so that I don’t show this off to people.” Yeah right. “All right, we will get me fitted with some nice warm clothes so that we can move on to the next store.”

“Get shopping, woman, before I kiss you silly and we forget where we are,” he told her, shaking his head.

The next half hour was spent in choosing a warm coat, gloves, boots, and scarf as well as a hat or two.

Holding all her new stuff, Janos followed her as she meandered, the only word for it, through the store. She would pick up something, stare at it, turn and compare the colors to what he held, and then either sneak a not-so-unobvious peek at the price or just put it back.

She finally looked at him and smiled. “I think that I’m done and ready.” She had a coat, scarf, gloves, and boots and had tapped out all the cash she had left, so she was done, fully and completely. “Thank you for holding everything, Janos. Are you sure that you’re good with it?” She took her things from him as they walked toward the cash register.

“I’m fine,” he said with a grin and, through a little well-planned fumbling, had his card out and in front of the cashier before Mina could say two words. “Put it away,” Janos told her softly as she tried to get the girl to take her card instead. “I’m the one that thought this trip up. Let me pay for it.”

She frowned at him and shook her head. “I’m getting to buy us lunch then,” she said with a nod and smile. “Thank you, Janos.” She looked at the cashier who was grinning ear to ear. When they had her bag, she let Janos take it and slipped her hand into his other one as they moved out of the clothing store and toward a pharmacy in the mall.

“What are you getting us for lunch then?” he asked as he wove in and out of all the people window shopping. Cutting through a crowd, he made it into the pharmacy with no problem and let her guide him wherever they needed to go.