The truth

“Elaina! Elaina!” Blaze yelled into her face. “Wake up, dammit!”

He was shouting, anger at the fear that he’d not only smelled as he’d slept in his own bed but that had also assailed him like a plague when he’d stepped through the adjoining door into her room. The sight of her flailing wildly into the air, pillows flipping off the bed, sheets tangled in her legs as she continued to scream had incited something deep and intense inside him until his muscles had actually vibrated as he moved quickly to get to her.

Now his arms were holding her tightly, her back against his front, her head thrashing over his shoulders. The screams had subsided, but her fear was still live, still potent enough to have her eyes closed tight, tears trickling rapidly down her cheeks.

“I’m right here,” he told her. “Right here. Nobody will hurt you as long as I’m with you. I promise you.”

Her heart was still hammering against her chest. He could hear it and feel it as his hand stroked along her arms. He had no idea when he’d begun rocking her back and forth or why, but the movement seemed to calm her, so he continued. Her hair tickled his cheek and Edwards leaned into it, until his cheek rested against the top of her head.

“They’ll never hurt you again,” he said when her sobbing had ceased, her body jerking slightly with her heavy breathing.

He moved so that he was now sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard, her body still cradled against him.

“Tell me what they did to you, lýkaina?” he asked after a few more moments. “Tell me so I can make them pay.”

She didn’t speak at first, the silence slicing through Edwards like a painfully familiar knife. He gritted his teeth against his own personal memory and vowed to focus only on her, on what she’d been through and what had ultimately brought her here to him.

“It’s all so stupid” was her response. One Edwards had not expected. He’d half-expected an argument before the admission because since they’d met that seemed to be the formula that worked for them.

“What’s so stupid?” he asked.

She shook her head, attempting to turn away from him and to move out of his grasp, but he held her firmly. Not to cause her further harm, but to keep her close because every instinct he possessed said he needed her to be near him.

“A beta can become an alpha and form his own pack if he claims an alpha female. He can claim her without her permission, without her love! It’s stupid!” she yelled.

Edwards clenched his teeth, temples throbbing at her words. She sounded just like his mother as she’d made that declaration, but he didn’t want to think of that. “Someone wanted to claim you, and you disagreed.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “That’s why I left, because he wanted to claim me. He waited until the night of the full moon, my birthday.” The last came out quietly and she closed her eyes momentarily as if wishing whatever emotion she was feeling would go away. “The others had already been sent away. He’d made some plans for them at some bar where they could have sex with whomever they wanted as much as they wanted until dawn. They knew about those kinds of places. I didn’t.”

“And the bastard tried to force you.” Those words stuck in Edwards’s throat in a wad of disgust, threatening to actually choke him as the visions of someone attempting to forcefully claim her surfaced in his mind.

“He was going to take what he wanted regardless of how I felt, or what he truly thought of me. He didn’t like me. Never had. Called me names to my face and behind my back. Told me that I would change the moment I was his bitch. I would lose weight and I would wear the clothes he wanted me to wear, cook the food he wanted me to cook. I would be his and there would be nothing I could do about it.”

Edwards felt the rage boiling inside him as he listened to her words, heard both the anger and fear in her voice as she remembered that night.

“He was wrong,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “I stabbed him in the shoulder and would have killed him if Penn hadn’t shown up and stopped me. He said that I was a disgrace, that my mother hadn’t done her job training me, and that I should accept whoever wanted me despite whatever my mother told me, because that’s the best I was ever going to get. I told Penn and the rest of the pack to go to hell.”

“Bravo!” Blaze almost cheered. “Fucking bravo!”

Her father sounded like an ass, a clueless alpha whose pack was probably itching to turn on him. Edwards remained quiet, letting her words sink in, as he cursed inwardly when her body had gone tense in his arms.

“Which one was it?” he asked, trying like hell to sound as calm as he possibly could. The last thing she needed right now was to see how pissed he really was about what she was telling him.

She took in a deep breath and said, “It was Dallas. He’s closest to Penn and probably had Penn’s blessing over the others.”

“You ran away because a beta in your pack tried to force himself on you and your alpha, the sorry bastard, did nothing to stop it! Even when he knew—” Edwards didn’t finish the sentence. What if Penn didn’t know his daughter was a Selected? After all, it didn’t seem as if Elaina knew herself what she really was.

“Yes, he knew that I didn’t want Dallas. I didn’t want any of them and I’d made a point of telling them on more than one occasion. They’d backed up for a while, but then after my mother’s death … I don’t know, it just seemed like they became more determined after she was gone. At least Dallas had. I hated how he looked at me,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“Dammit. I didn’t mean to tell you all that. I’m fine now,” she said, clearing her throat. “Sorry I woke you with my nightmare. You can go now, I’ll be all right.”

“I won’t leave you,” he told her adamantly. “I will protect you.”

“From the boogeyman?” she asked with a light chuckle. “Seriously, I’m good now.”

She’d turned a little, so that she was now looking right up at him. He glanced down, saw her hazel eyes, still red from her crying. Honey-toned cheeks streaked from tears, hair a wild mass that for all that it was worth, aroused him just as much as the feel of her soft body pressed against his. No, Edwards did not believe in the selection process because if it were true she wouldn’t be here with him; of all the lycans in the world it would not be him.

“I’m not leaving,” he replied adamantly, ignoring his thoughts. “Turn around and go back to sleep.”

She huffed and acted as if she were about to say something else. Edwards only stared at her with every bit of intent that he possessed. He meant it. Alpha female, Selected, homeless woman on the streets, who- or whatever Elaina was, Edwards had no intention of leaving her or letting her go. It was that simple. And that damned complicated.

He’d never slept with a woman before. Never held one in his arms in this way before either. Had never wanted to.

“You cannot sleep if you keep staring at me,” he said, this time not looking down at her.

Something happened when he looked deep into her eyes, something stranger than what was happening now, and Edwards figured he could only deal with so many anomalies at one time.

“Are you really planning to stay with me every second of every day from now on?” came her tired inquiry.

“I already told you I don’t plan on letting anything happen to you.”

“That’s not an answer to my question, Edwards. Why would you want to keep me here knowing that my family is intent on hunting and killing yours?”

The question had caught Edwards off guard, but he didn’t show it. He should have known she knew who he was. She was a Hunter after all. Gritting his teeth, he said, “This is not the time for a question-and-answer session. It’s the middle of the night. You need to get some sleep.” And he needed to think. He needed to figure out what the hell was going on here and how he actually planned to deal with it.

“And what do you need, Edwards?” she pressed.

He was the one to stiffen this time.

“Why are you doing this when there’s a very real possibility that I could be setting you up to be killed?”

Edwards looked down at her this time, ignored the urge to push a few thick strands of hair from her forehead. “Are you setting me up?” he asked her simply, seriously.

She shook her head. “No. I’m not.”

He believed her. That was simple and also very serious.

“Then go to sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to tell me all about your pack and why one of them was stupid enough to try and claim you against your will.”

“Why do you care?”

Edwards had no answer to that question. None that he was ready to admit anyway. “We’ll talk more later. Go to sleep now, lýkaina.”

She blinked up at him. “Why do you call me that?”

Another question. Edwards should have been amazed, but nothing about her was as it should have been. Nothing was normal or self-explanatory. That was a big part of the problem.

“Because you’re one spitfire of a lycan.”

“It’s the Greek translation of the word,” she continued. “There are books in the library written in Greek. They’re yours, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“I could tell some things from the pictures and a few words looked familiar. I think I’d like to know what they say.” She paused momentarily. “I read the book about your family.”

And that’s how she knew who he was. Or had she always known? Edwards couldn’t think straight, not with her lying so calmly in his arms, her body soft and warm against his. He knew who she was and who he was. For all intents and purposes that alone caused a problem. If that sign on her back had any real significance, the issue was magnified. When all of this came to a head the damage could be irreversible. His head pounded, even while his body hardened reacting to her proximity, the innocent whisper of her voice in the still of the night. It had been a very long time since Edwards had been this conflicted, since the decisions that he needed to make weighed so heavily on his mind.

“I can teach you the Greek words,” he said finally. “After you get some sleep.”

She actually looked as if she was contemplating his response, her brow furrowing slightly. Edwards slid down so that he was now lying on the bed, pulling her to him, and settling them both against the two pillows that still remained on the bed.

“Good night, lýkaina,” he said, this time praying to every god he did believe in for her questions to cease. At least for tonight.

She moved then, an action that pressed her flush against his hard cock, her back to his chest. The fear was gone now and she smelled like rain. Her hair brushing against his chin smelled like coconut, which matched the shampoo that he knew was in her bathroom.

“Good night,” she replied finally, the sound of her voice like a fresh breeze on a summer’s day.

Minutes ticked by, then hours, Edwards was sure. He did not sleep, did not close his eyes or even relax. Instead, he remembered.

His mother had been born in Greece, in a small town at the base of Mount Olympus. His father had moved there after years of traveling, attempting to find solitude from the role he’d been cursed to play. Alec Trekas had no idea that he’d been going to the very place he needed to be to continue his part in this war that Zeus had begun. Kharis was a believer in the Moirai, or the Fates. She knew that meeting Alec on that summer’s day was a thread in the life she was meant to lead. Ten years later Kharis and Alec had moved to the United States to raise their three sons and daughter. And Kharis had begun to tell her middle son, Edwards, the stories of the Fates, explaining that his life had a purpose and that he would one day find that purpose and act accordingly. He would live up to the power of his bloodline.

And on that fateful day while Edwards was in basic training at the Marine Corps, his family had been killed by a group of Hunters. In the blink of an eye his fate had been sealed. He’d tried to run from it, joining the human military and getting as far away from his family and their beliefs as he possibly could. Yet he had been unable to run from the threads of fate that were steadily twining together to form his life.

Elaina was a thread.

The thought had hit him some time just before dawn. The Moirai had brought her here and that knowledge was the intrinsic reason why he could not let her go. He’d held back a curse as once again what he wanted no longer mattered. His destiny had been pre-ordained by powers beyond what even he and his many books on their history could comprehend.

So, yes, he would keep her close and he would protect her and he would face the pack of Hunters that he knew were coming for her. He would face them, all the while praying that they had no idea who and what he really was, because that would be a game changer.

That would be the beginning of the end.

* * *

Elaina awoke with a whoosh of breath escaping her lungs, her eyes cracking open to see a great ass … naked, flexing much closer to her face than she thought was good for her sanity. Or anyone else’s sanity for that matter. Her palms itched to touch each tight globe, to run her fingers along the deep dent on each side. She’d just been moving her arms closer, her fingers wiggling with anticipation, when it dawned on her what was going on.

A door slammed and she jolted upward, or at least she tried. A strong arm across the back of her legs and the fact that she seemed to be moving despite that had her about to scream. Only something told her that she wasn’t in danger, at least not in the traditional sense. No, this was different; this was the type of trouble that started with a capital B and seemed to be right up her alley as of late.

“What the hell are you doing? Put me down!” she yelled at his back … the exceptionally great-looking backside of this man she couldn’t seem to keep out of her mind or her personal space.

“I need a shower,” he said while he continued walking.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said just after her feet hit the cool ceramic tiles. She looked down at her feet, light against the dark gray of the floor, then up to see that mouthwatering ass again as Edwards leaned over into a shower stall that looked the size of half the room she was staying in. He turned the silver handle and looked up as water instantly began to fall … from the ceiling.

Elaina looked up then to see one of two sleek silver showerheads that blended seamlessly with the stark white ceiling. The walls surrounding the shower were gray tiles that matched the floor, clear glass doors encasing the entire structure. A bench lined the entire wall, with three inlays that housed bottles of body wash and shampoos, she presumed.

“You can’t take a shower from over there,” he said, and Elaina looked up at him.

He was naked. Totally. Deliciously.

Had he been naked last night when he’d come into her room? More important, had he been naked the entire time he’d lain in that bed next to her? Oh yes, she recalled immediately, he definitely had. The inside of her thighs were still wet from that knowledge, as she’d continuously pressed her ass back to rub along the mouthwatering length of his arousal. He’d been hard and hot all night long and she’d wondered how she’d managed to fall asleep at all. Easy, when she slept she dreamed of him slipping every inch of his thick cock deep inside of her, sort of like that wolf in her nightmare had done with its tongue.

“You can stare at me from inside the shower as well” was Edwards’s final irritatingly cocky statement before he stepped through the glass door, to stand beneath the spray of water.

His words bothered and aroused her, and before she could analyze them any further Elaina found herself doing exactly as he’d said, again. She stood there staring at him as water sluiced over his ripped abs, down his toned thighs. When he turned she sucked in a breath to see a line trickling down the crease of that perfect ass of his. Hell, she wanted to scream that he shouldn’t look so damned good and be so freakin’ irritating all at the same time. No, what she really wanted to do was fuck him.

It was a startling truth, and since she’d decided long ago that she wasn’t in the business of lying or betraying or any of that other stuff her father and his pack seemed to thrive on, she had to start by at least being honest with herself. No matter how she’d come to be here or how much she thought leaving was the only answer, she wanted to be beneath Edwards with her legs spread wide, willing and waiting for him even more.

With that thought and the realization that it was morning so she would need a shower anyway, she pulled the nightshirt up and over her head, moving slowly until she was opening the shower door and stepping inside, with him.

He’d already grabbed the soap and stood just a couple inches away from the water rubbing it all over his body. There was nothing seductive about his movements, they were purely functional, and yet she could not stop watching every swipe of his hand over taut muscles, sculpted peaks, and that rigid gloriousness of his shaft. Her mouth watered at the sight.

Elaina had never gone down on a guy before. She’d seen it of course, as her father’s pack were absolutely shameless in their sexual exploits. There’d been more than one occasion when it had been late and she’d gotten up for a snack—or because she’d known what she’d see—and she’d found them in the living room. All of them. Together. Of course she’d seen more than she’d ever personally experienced. Dallas sitting on the couch, his head tilted back, mouth open as he groaned, some unknown female between his legs sucking his hard cock until he was coming into her mouth. Cody would be behind the same female, spreading her ass cheeks as he thrust his length into her from behind. While across the room Kev and Milo would touch and suck each other, until finally they were both howling with release.

She’d been both aroused and alarmed by the sights at first but over time had grown more accustomed to seeing how lycans were together, how her father said they were meant to be. But when Dallas had come for her that night she’d wanted him off of her. She’d screamed and fought back and done everything in her power to resist becoming a part of the circle these men had formed, no matter how normal it was said to be for their kind.

“You like what you see?” Edwards’s deep voice pulled her from her reverie and her gaze snapped up to his face to find him staring intently at her.

His eyes were usually brown—she’d noted that during yesterday’s breakfast—but in the gym and again last night when she’d looked up at him they’d been almost black and clouded with what … she thought might be desire. Was Edwards as attracted to her as she was to him? How could that be possible? He was an alpha of his own pack and she was just— On second thought, yeah, he could want her. He could want to claim her just like the others. If nothing else, she was an opportunity to any pack, a rise in their power and a key part to whichever side that pack was on. How was that for knowing her worth? However, Elaina sensed something different here, something more intriguing than anything she’d ever seen the members of her father’s pack doing before.

“What are we doing?” she asked in response because she simply wasn’t sure. Her plan had to be to find her mother’s family, to possibly stay with them while she figured out what else was out there for her, what her mother had said was her true destiny.

“You’re just about salivating while staring at me,” came Edwards’s reply.

“Even in the shower you’re an arrogant ass,” she quipped, turning away from him and reaching for one of the bottles of body wash. She was just reading to see what scent it held when he reached an arm around her, taking it from her hand.

“But I wasn’t lying,” he said. “You were staring at me like you wanted this dick for yourself.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but he touched two fingers to her lips after replacing the body wash. “Shh, just listen before you argue.”

Elaina did not want to listen to him, not again, and certainly not now when he was so close to her and the thoughts of him pounding hard and fast into her pussy were still running rampant through her mind.

“Like I told you yesterday, part of taking full control of your life is knowing what you want and taking it,” he said, water trickling at his back.

They were both wet and standing only inches from each other. The water was hot and steam had begun to fill the stall, so that she could no longer see anything outside the space they now occupied.

“I do know what I want,” she told him defiantly. “I know that I do not want to be here. I never planned to be here … with you.”

“And yet, you want to touch me,” he told her, his gaze going dark as he stared down at her. “You want to wrap your little hands around my hard cock and stroke until I come. Or do you want to suck it? You do, don’t you? You want to suck me dry, lýkaina.”

His voice had deepened as he’d continued, his gaze falling to her lips that as if on command had opened, not wide enough for him to slip his length inside the way he’d suggested, but enough so that even if she denied his words he would know she was lying.

“I don’t understand,” she replied with every ounce of honesty she possessed. “Why me?”

His gaze came back up to meet hers, his lips pressing tightly together before his next words seemed to be ground out, “Why not you?

“I’ll bet that smart mouth of yours is hot as hell. And wet, just like your pussy. Ever since that night in the woods I’ve been unable to get the scent of your arousal out of my head. It’s driving me insane!” He had raised his voice and Elaina took a precautionary step back.

“I don’t belong here.”

“You do,” he replied.

She was shaking her head, refusing to hear his words, wanting desperately to focus on the sound of the water hitting the tiled floor.

“I don’t belong with you.”

“That’s what I originally thought,” he said, reaching out to grab her wrist in his hand. He held it firmly while their gazes remained locked. When she could feel him pulling her hand closer Elaina swallowed.

“I vowed to never let anyone in. I had no choice.” His voice sounded strained, almost tortured, and Elaina’s heart beat wildly as she stared at him, seeing that strange glow outlining his body once more.

“But then you showed up,” he continued, and Elaina blinked. She tried to focus to hear his words, to understand what they meant, what this aura surrounding him was supposed to mean to her.

“I didn’t expect you,” he said, his voice growing deeper as he placed her hand at the base of his dick. “You,” he repeated, clamping his lips tightly once more.

Elaina gasped when her fingers scraped along the turgid length of his arousal. Her body trembled, her mind warring with what she should do next. Part of her thinking she should pull away, kick through the shower door, and run like hell, doing whatever she could to get out of this house and away from this man. Another part demanding she stay right there, that she touch him, be with him, accept him. It was weird in a long line of unexplainable things that had been happening to her—Tora’s death, Penn’s betrayal, her running away and ending up in the midst of a Devoted pack, the dreams that seemed so real, and him, this lycan who should have been so wrong for her but felt so damned right.

Her fingers extended, wrapping around the base, loving the warmth that immediately spread from him to her palm, up her arm, and throughout her body. She held him tightly, her lips trembling, eyes trained on his face.

“Take it, lýkaina. Take what you want,” he said through gritted teeth.

Elaina stared at him, amazed at what she thought she saw. His face was contorted, in pleasure, she thought, as his breaths were coming faster, a muscle in his jaw twitching as she tightened her grip on him. When she pulled her hand back, stroking her palm along the veined length of his cock, stopping to rub her thumb over the bulbous head, he closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly from side to side.

She repeated the motion again and again, moving faster, watching his shoulders bunch, his Adam’s apple shift up and then down each time that he swallowed.

“I want your mouth. Now,” he told her. “Right, fucking now!”

His words had been spoken in a guttural tone, raw with something she wasn’t totally familiar with. When his eyes opened and he caught her staring at him, he licked his lips slowly. Elaina thought she remembered that tongue and felt her pussy clench in response.

“Put your mouth on me, lýkaina.”

Elaina wondered if he meant on his lips, which he’d just licked again, or on his cock, which she was thoroughly enjoying stroking.

“Where?” she whispered, her throat going dry with the simple word.

“There,” he said the moment her thumb rubbed over his tip again. “Right. There.”

Never in a million years would Elaina have thought she would be here, doing this, with an alpha like Edwards. She’d been told she would never get anyone better than a beta and that even then he wouldn’t really want her for anything other than the status her birthright could provide.

There were so many questions, so many obstacles that should stand between her and Edwards. She didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, and right at this very moment Elaina didn’t care. Her body had already begun to lower, her knees planting firmly against the wet tile, her hand still tightly gripping his dick. His gorgeous long and heavy cock with the thick veins stretching like rope along the sides and the tip that at this very moment wept a drop of white cum that she couldn’t wait to taste.

So dipping her head lower without another word, Elaina extended her tongue, licking the tip of Edwards’s cock and taking that drop as if it were there especially for her. His hands were immediately in her hair, tangling and wrapping the strands around his fist until his blunt nails scraped along her scalp and he began to slowly push her down farther over his dick.

Having never done this before, Elaina simply went on instinct, opening her mouth, letting her tongue slide along the underside of his length, the head reaching the back of her throat where it seemed to tap and ask for entrance. Edwards helped her this time, by tipping her head back slightly, pressing forward as he did. She looked up at him, shivering at how hot and hungry his intense gaze on her made her feel. His teeth were bared, the sharp tips of his incisors clearly visible through the steam rising around them.

He worked her head slowly, easing himself in and out of her, like he was spoon-feeding her. She could tell he was holding back, that maybe he wanted to pump more deeply into her mouth. That thought had her thighs shaking, her pussy dripping. Her nipples scraped against his legs, sending tendrils of pleasure flitting throughout her body.

With a start she realized she wanted more, needed more. She sucked him in deeper, loving the feel of his turgid skin sliding sinuously against her tongue, pressing back along her throat. Her hand worked up and down his shaft in conjunction with her mouth, until her lips were as wet as his length, the suckling sound echoing in the stall.

When his dick began to pulsate in her mouth, his hands gripping her head more firmly, holding her in place, Elaina shivered all over. She wanted desperately to reach between her legs and thrust her fingers deep inside. She would come instantly, she knew; her arousal was so keen she was ready to explode.

“I don’t … do … this,” he said, his voice strained as his hips jutted forward, his balls slapping against her chin as she took him completely inside her mouth.

Elaina had no idea what he didn’t do. All she knew for certain was what he was doing to her at this very moment. Every nerve in her body was on alert, her breasts so full they ached and her pussy creaming so heavily she was certain the moisture on her thighs was not water from the shower.

“Never before,” he continued, this time pulling her head back again.

She could see him looking down at her, saw the twist of his lips, the muscles bulging in his neck as he looked to be fighting something. Whatever it was he was working against must have been strong; the struggle looked so intense that Elaina almost let him slip from her lips.

“No, lýkaina, you cannot stop. It’s too late for that,” he told her, thrusting forward one more time so that he was once again filling her mouth.

Elaina sucked hard and deep, her cheeks hollowing as she held him still right there.

“That’s right; you’re gonna suck it right out of me,” he said, his teeth gritting between his words. “Whether I want you to or not!”

And she did, without even knowing what to expect or how to complete this task. Edwards stiffened over her, his hands firm on the back of her head, a growl reverberating throughout his chest as the heated jets of his release shot straight to the back of her throat. When she swallowed once, then twice, it was with a spike of something new coursing through her body, something more powerful than she’d ever imagined.

She held him in her mouth until his fingers loosened in her hair. Then with a few last licks along his still-stiff cock, she pulled back slowly, only to gasp when he lifted her up quickly from the floor. He was staring at her intently as he locked her ankles around his back and moved them until they stood just beneath the spray of hot water.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he said with a growl quickly following his words.

A sound that sent heat spikes straight down to her pussy, stalling any reply she hoped to make.

CHAPTER 8

Edwards had no idea what he was doing.

That was wrong, he thought as he sat back on the bench, his hands firmly planted on Elaina’s pliant ass as he positioned her over his throbbing length. He’d carried her across the shower stall only seconds after watching her take every spurt of his cum into her mouth without blinking an eye. With each swallow something had shifted inside him, something more than the beast that resided within. He’d decided in that moment he would have her, here and now, regardless of the restrictions he’d put on himself or the consequences that might come from this act.

“Dammit, so fucking tight!” he gritted through clenched teeth. “So good and so tight!”

Her nails dug into his shoulders and he pushed her down slowly over his length, sucking in a breath each time another inch of his cock was buried deeper in the warmth of her. His arms threatened to tremble, his eyes closing. Edwards willed it all to stop, forcing the thoughts of why this was wrong and possibly dangerous out of his mind.

None of it mattered at this moment. He was doing it. He was steadily sinking inside of her, loving the tight grip her heated walls had on his cock, the sting of her nails breaking his skin, and the look she was currently giving him. Her eyes were wide open, bright with arousal and anticipation. Her body was willing and pliant and she scooted even closer to him, his dick buried to the hilt inside of her. Her thighs were so soft around his waist, her breasts high and heavy, jiggling each time she moved, holding his gaze like a dog to a bone.

“It’s perfect,” he heard the words, knew they were spoken from him, and yet still couldn’t believe it.

He kneaded her ass, loving the feel of the globes in his palm, remembering with startlingly clarity how it felt the first time he’d touched it.

He’d slapped her ass. The thought hit him mid-thrust and Edwards growled, wanting to do so again. Yet she hadn’t disobeyed him in any way this time. In fact, she’d been giving him everything he wanted, from the moment she stepped into this stall. It wasn’t right, he thought, trying desperately to concentrate on her hips gyrating above him, his deep thrusts in and out of her. He considered pulling his hands away to remove the temptation, but they wouldn’t move, as if it were their turn to be defiant.

He pumped harder, going deeper, as she gasped, biting her bottom lip to keep from screaming out loud. Edwards didn’t like screaming or moaning or any other faked response from females. He tended to go only for the true evidence of their pleasure—their puckered nipples, wet pussy, and release that vibrated through their body. Anything else was not tolerated.

“Let it out!” he told Elaina. “Let me know how good I feel inside of you!”

She continued to grip his shoulders, her teeth still biting into her lower lip, her eyes halfway closed as she bounced on top of him, taking every inch of his dick as if it were something she did every day, like this was somehow owed to her. She did not scream or yell.

Edwards raged on the inside, grasping her at the hips and pushing her up off his dick. His body reacted and he growled, his release not at all happy that he’d put a pause to its second act. Oh, how he wanted to come while buried deep inside her. While her mouth had been warm and wet it was nothing compared to how juicy her pussy felt, how tightly it gripped him, threatening to milk the remaining cum from his body.

He stood, still holding her by the waist, and she looked at him in surprise.

“Turn around,” he told her once he’d stood up.

For a second she looked as if she might argue, but then she turned away from him. He pressed at the base of her back, the point where her hips splayed outward, the most enticing of her curves beginning—his palm covering that crescent-moon mark. She gasped, most likely because he hadn’t been gentle when he’d pushed her forward. Her hands flattened on the bench, her ass jutting up and out, ready for him to sink between its creases to find her waiting pussy once more.

Instead, Edwards smacked her right cheek and almost groaned as he watched it jiggle in response.

“Edwards!” she yelled his name, looking back over her shoulder.

“I told you to let go,” he said, lifting his hand, flexing his fingers at the heat burning in the pit of his palm. “And you disobeyed me.”

The cracking sound of his hand on her other cheek came and his dick jutted forward with excitement. Elaina turned then, twisting her body so that she was almost facing him.

“Don’t,” she said through clenched teeth. “Don’t do that again.”

“Why?” he asked, his heart beating wildly, the combination of her scent and the sight of her rounded ass turning red bringing him even closer to release. “Because you like it, don’t you? You’ve never been spanked before and you like it.”

She shook her head, but she was no longer yelling at him. Edwards placed a palm flat on her ass and kept his gaze trained on her. “Tell me you like it, lýkaina. It’s okay to like what I do to you.”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s not … I don’t…”

He began rubbing his palm over the reddened spot on her buttock, then leaned forward, moving his hand so that he could kiss that spot, tracing his tongue along the heated flesh.

“I won’t hurt you, Elaina. I would never hurt you,” he told her. “Trust me.”

She’d sucked in a breath when his mouth touched her flesh; now she trembled as he continued to lick and kiss her intermittently, his other palm planted firmly on her other cheek.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said on another hiss of breath. “Or how to be this person.”

“Just let go,” he told her. “You’re safe with me. Just let go and let me give you everything you’ve ever desired.”

Edwards had no idea what that really was. For the first time in his life he wasn’t totally certain of what he could or should do for a female … for this female. Because he suspected what she really needed was far beyond the physical.

“Let me give you pleasure,” he whispered, not willing to question himself any further.

He continued to rub her bottom, using long, slow, gentle strokes. The waning steam still misting around them. “Just relax and let me give you more.”

She looked as if she wasn’t certain, her lips partially parted and wet. He wanted to kiss her, the realization slapping against him with surprising clarity. But he didn’t do it; he couldn’t. Instead, he rubbed a hand up her back and over her shoulders to continue to calm her, all the while positioning himself behind her, spreading her bottom so that his dick could slip through the warm crease, down, down until being sucked into her waiting pussy.

Edwards grabbed her hips then, thrusting deep and fast inside of her until his teeth cut through his bottom lip, her moans growing louder and louder.

“Come for me, lýkaina. Come for your—” His words cut off abruptly. He was not her alpha. Did not want to be. Could never be.

“Come for me!” he yelled, his hips slapping wildly against her ass, “Come for me now!”

“Bla-a-ez!” His name was a long, loud wail as she stiffened beneath him, her lycan nails scraping along the tiled bench with a high-pitched sound.

He loved that sound, coupled with her voice screaming his name again and again. Edwards moved faster, his dick pistoning in and out of her slickness with a smacking sound that only added to his arousal. His entire body vibrated while his nostrils flared, filling him with her scent. He would never forget this, never forget her. Ever.

Dammit!

* * *

“I’m going down to the library,” Edwards said twenty minutes after he’d left her standing in the shower.

Elaina was now in her room and, thankfully, completely dressed, while he stood in the doorway, blocking any entrance or exit.

Replacing the embarrassment she’d felt yesterday after their training session when he’d walked away from her was a heated ball of agitation from the way he’d simply fucked her and left this morning. The pattern with him was more than disconcerting. At the same time, Elaina couldn’t help but wonder what it was she actually expected from him. Was it candlelight and romance, a prelude to a claiming? No. That’s not what she’d been looking for; she’d been adamant about that fact from the beginning. But now—

“You need to join me,” he continued, sounding exasperated.

He thought she would get up and follow without comment. Just as there’d been no doubt in his mind that she would melt in his hands as he’d smacked her ass in the shower. Well, okay, the spike of pain had seared straight through to her clit, causing her to shiver and almost come as if on command. But that didn’t mean she had to follow him blindly all the time.

“No. I’m not simply going to follow you down to the library, Edwards. I didn’t come looking for another lycan to dictate what I do and how I do it. I didn’t ask you to keep me locked in this house whether for protection or whatever other reasons. None of this was a part of my plan.” She took a deep breath and then released it. “But I’m not so rigid or blind, for that matter, as to not see that there’s something else at play here. Something that I don’t think either of us planned. Wouldn’t it make more sense if we talked about that instead of operating on this hot and cold system that’s been going on between us?” Elaina wanted answers and she wasn’t going to follow any more of Edwards’s commands—even the ones that aroused her tremendously—until she received them.

He looked so damned good standing there, so powerful and authoritative, legs spread slightly, muscles bulging and flexing she suspected without any direction from him. Her father had not exuded this authority or strength, for that matter; neither had any of the other alphas she’d ever met. And while it wasn’t there at this very moment, there was that glow that she saw every now and then when she looked at Edwards, that not so subtle reminder that he was a force to be reckoned with. Well, it looked as if she’d be going up against him now whether she planned to heed that warning or not.

“You were the one who said you wanted to know what the books written in Greek said,” he told her calmly, without addressing her current questions at all.

But he was agreeing to another one of her requests. She wondered if this would be the only way to deal with him, on his terms and in his time. If it was, she wasn’t sure how she would deal with that, but for now she asked for clarification, “You’re going to teach me how to read Greek?”

“You said you wanted to learn so that you would be able to read all the books in the library. Come down to the library with me and I’ll teach you.”

Of course he left her standing there to contemplate a reply that he wouldn’t hear either way. A part of her, a distant part that she was feeling less and less connected to the longer she remained in this house, wanted her to stay in this room, to continue to search for a way out. But another part, the stronger part, she admitted, pressed her to go forward. It actually felt more like a push against all that she’d thought she was and believed to go with him, to possibly learn more.

Minutes later, Elaina was in the library.

“Whose idea was it to make this a library?” she asked him.

Yesterday she’d wondered this same thing as she’d walked into this space with its darker, heavier-looking wood shelves. Today she stood in the center of the room, the plush Oriental rug cushioning her feet; the two love seats positioned in the middle of the floor directly across from each other were dark brown leather. There was a large round coffee table between the love seats and on the opposite sides two sets of the same high-backed leather chairs that matched the one she’d sat in yesterday.

“Did you hire a decorator?” was her next question, and she turned around to see where Edwards was and why he hadn’t answered the first one.

When he turned to face her he was already holding a book, the one on the Trekas family she’d been reading yesterday. “Channing’s mother is into designing. His father’s a contractor, so they helped with the remodel. Each of us agreed on the library.”

“What do you all do for a living?” she asked, since he’d opened the door with mention of Channing’s parents. “Are you all sickeningly wealthy?”

“Not all of us” was Edwards’s calm response. He sat on the couch, opening the book, and began flipping slowly through its pages. “You said you read this book last night,” he said without looking up at her. “I know that parts of it are written in Greek. My family loved the language and made sure that each of us knew how to read and speak it. So I’ll have to teach you the Greek alphabet before you can read. For now, I want to tell you the story of how the lycans came to be in existence.”

Elaina sat beside him, moving closer to look down at the page. “We all know the story, Edwards,” she started to say even though she distinctly remembered reading things she hadn’t known before in that book last night.

He nodded then, sitting back on the couch. “Tell me what the Hunters taught you to believe.”

The Hunters—her parents and their pack had been Hunters. She had been a Hunter. Ignoring that fact, she began,

“Lykaon pissed Zeus off. Zeus sought revenge in his usual brute way by killing all of Lykaon’s sons but one, and turning Lykaon into a wolf. Nyktimos was Lykaon’s youngest son and had been saved from Zeus’s wrath by Gaia, who hid him in the river. She should have been smart enough to hide him from Lykaon, who was now bitter and still irritated at having lost his reign as king of Arcadia and was now relegated to walking around on all fours howling at the moon.” Elaina paused when she noticed how intently he was staring at her and noticed the quick warmth spreading throughout her body as a result.

Clearing her throat, she continued, “Lykaon eventually found Nyktimos and out of anger and jealousy bit his only living son, thus changing him into a werewolf. Nyktimos, now angry at his father in turn for the fact that now on the night of the full moon he would shift into a hideous beast, left Arcadia and Olympus and all its battling gods and demigods and helpless mortals. He ended up in Washington State, where he met and fell in love with the human Aleya, whom he eventually bit. Thus began our hybrid breed of part wolf, part man, otherwise known as the lycan.”

She left out the part where Nyktimos had felt an instant connection to Aleya and only bit her because his love had grown so quickly and so deeply for her that he never wanted to lose her. When Elaina looked at Edwards this time there was a brief change. His eyes were blue again, his face contorted until he looked more like a wolf than a lycan, and he lay on the ground, not moving, dead. A quick and potent wave of grief washed over her and she bit down on her lip to keep from gasping.

“The lycan breed then began to grow throughout the world, continuing the ridiculous feud between Zeus and Lykaon in their own self-destructive way,” he said, slamming the book closed on his lap and not noticing the few strange moments she’d just experienced.

Elaina chanced another look at him, just to make sure what she’d seen wasn’t true. Edwards wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be, because he was sitting here talking to her. His shirt today was light gray, a color that made his dark eyes brighten only slightly, even though his brow was still furrowed, his jaw stoically drawn.

Maybe she was hallucinating since they’d skipped breakfast. Yes, that was it. Her blood sugar was low and so now she was seeing things.

With a shake of her head Elaina replied, “Mortals that were forced into being animals coming to an even bigger population of mortals, thus cursing some of them to the same dastardly fate, were supposed to do what else exactly?” She asked because she hated this story.

“Your pack, the Hunter packs, are attempting to kill off the Devoted lycans. Are you trying to say that’s because they have nothing better to do and that we should all simply blame Zeus and let the killing ensue?”

“No.” Elaina shook her head, turning in the seat so she could face him. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then tell me, Elaina. What are your thoughts on the Hunters and the Devoteds? Where exactly do you stand in this little war?”

He was speaking as if he already knew the answer, watching her closely like he had a plan for the moment she responded. It was like he had this all sorted out in his mind and was just waiting for her to walk to his beat. Just like Penn had.

“I don’t give a damn which one of you kills who,” she shot back quickly, loving the slight widening of Edwards’s eyes, which said she’d managed to shock him. “It’s not my fight, hence the reason I could so easily walk away.”

“Was it easy?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as he continued to stare at her. “Walking away from your pack?”

Talk about being caught off guard. His voice had changed with the blink of his eyes, from the cool, aloof interrogation to what she thought might be genuine concern. Elaina fidgeted. Well, she clasped her fingers, then unclasped them. And when she caught herself doing that she pulled her hands apart, tucking each one beneath a thigh as she looked back at him.

“Nothing in this life is easy, Edwards. I’m sure you know that considering you’re a leader of your own pack. You know better than I how all the decisions rest on your shoulders, how you are responsible for the lives of those who follow you.”

“Why would you feel responsible for your father or his pack? After what they did to you.”

She was already shaking her head, regretting the moment he’d come to her last night in the midst of her nightmare. She’d said things to him then that she shouldn’t have. Edwards was not her friend. Sure, she’d had sex with him, so maybe that kind of made him her lover, at least temporarily. But a friend was different. It was intimate and personal and there was nothing like that between them. Was there?

“Look, my situation is different from yours and probably from anyone else’s. I wasn’t what my father wanted or needed in his pack, I guess. And the others, well, they were down for making the best of the situation.”

“But you’re not a situation,” he said vehemently. “You were their alpha female. They should have cherished and protected you.”

His words, because they were so true and so exactly like the way her mother had been treated, hurt as if he were cutting directly into Elaina’s chest with a heated blade.

“Yeah, I know,” she said with a wavering smile and a chuckle that didn’t spark any humor inside. “They shouldn’t have felt like it was a chore to decide which one of them would claim the big girl. Alpha female or not, a man knows what he likes.”

“And an idiot will soon see what he lost” came Edwards’s automatic reply.

Elaina grew quiet, looking down at her thick thighs and shaking her head. She’d never been thin and hadn’t convinced herself that she was beautiful. Cute, yes, especially in the right outfit; pinks and vibrant blues were really her colors. So she didn’t have self-esteem or body image issues, but that didn’t mean she was stupid to the way of the world or the way most men thought when they looked at her. Hell, her father had even suggested diets and gyms to her on more than one occasion. Elaina had declined both. She ran on a daily basis, sometimes in the forest—where her mother had been killed—and Elaina loved to cook, which gave her ample excuse for also loving to eat. She was healthy according to her latest physical with the human doctor, a healthy size 16, with a mind much sharper than all the lycans in her father’s pack and a sweet spot for love songs.

“They were all idiots,” she replied finally. “Even my father. And so I left. Case closed.” She shrugged when Edwards didn’t immediately say anything and looked across the room.

“They’ll come for you,” he said.

She nodded. “I know. That’s why you should let me go. I can move surprisingly fast, thanks to my daily runs in the forest, which I’m missing out on being stuck in this lovely but locked-tight log fortress of yours. If I leave now I’ll be gone before the full moon.”

“Because there’s no way they’ll come before then,” he said.

Coming from anyone else, it would have been a question, but since Edwards seemed to know everything about everything, it was a statement.

“They’re not as strong as you and your pack,” she told him.

“How do you know how strong we are?”

She did chuckle then, honestly. “I can see, Edwards. Each of you is built like you stepped right off the pages of a workout magazine. And you carried me at least two miles back from the woods to this place and then again up the stairs, where you so eloquently showed me my sleeping quarters. Believe me when I say you’re much stronger than any of my father’s pack.”

“You’re not proud of your father at all. You speak almost as if you have no feelings for him. Why is that?” Edwards asked her.

“Because I don’t,” Elaina immediately replied. “I loved my mother and she was killed. I believe my father knows what really happened, but he refuses to tell me. For that, and for—” Elaina stopped. She took a deep breath and continued, “I’ll never forgive him for that.”

She was looking across the room again, trying to tell herself that this feeling like Edwards might actually be a nice guy, a guy she could on some level really like, was most likely way off base, when he surprised her yet again. His fingers slipped along her shoulder, moving until he was rubbing the nape of her neck. As she’d pulled her hair high into a ponytail today, each brush of his skin against hers sent a shiver of excitement straight down her spine.

“Sometimes people do what they think is best to protect others,” he told her.

When she looked to him again she was shocked to see that he’d moved even closer, without making a sound. His face was only inches from hers and she blinked away her astonishment.

“I don’t need protection,” she told him adamantly. “I needed the truth.”

Edwards stood then and said, “The truth is overrated and is rarely what one expects.” He walked away at that point, going to put the book back on its shelf, she presumed.

Elaina also figured that Edwards thought this conversation was over. He probably assumed she would leave since he’d walked away from her yet again. But no, that was not happening, not today. And especially not after she’d just about emptied her soul to him about what had gone on in her life. No, she was going to get answers from Edwards Trekas right here and right now, if it was the last thing she did.