The Dark-Hunters (211 page)

Now it was going to be home sweet home for a while.

She wanted to cry again, but she refused. If the worst thing that ever happened to her was Taylor leaving her, then she was truly blessed.

Still, it did hurt. Deeply.

As Mina and Tabitha walked off, the wolf came forward to stare up at her.

“You are beautiful, aren’t you?” she asked, reaching down to stroke his ears again.

He licked her hand before he rubbed himself against her legs much like a cat might.

“C’mon,” she said, indicating the courtyard with a nod of her head. “I don’t really want to be alone tonight and you look like you might appreciate somewhere warm and dry to sleep.”

He padded inside the gate while she locked the door and made her way over to the renovated stable/apartment.

Her heart heavy, Bride was grateful that she had this one tiny place left, otherwise she would be in a hotel room tonight. Or worse, her parents’ house. She loved them dearly, but she wasn’t in the mood to answer their questions or see the look of disappointment on her mother’s face as she lamented the fact that if Bride didn’t get married, she’d never have any more grandchildren.

At least here in her own place she had some comfort.

Maybe.

She opened the door and switched on the lights. Luckily, the water and electricity for this apartment was turned on since it ran off the same line that provided the water and electricity for her store.

The wolf hesitated as he looked around the three hundred square feet of boxes and artwork.

“Oh,” she said playfully, “you feeling picky, huh?”

If she didn’t know better, she would swear he shook his head no before he came in and started nosing around her boxes.

After locking the door, Bride went to the dusty desk and dropped her keys on top of it. Then she pulled the cover from the couch and coughed as she unearthed a dust bunny farm of death.

“I really hate you, Taylor,” she said quietly as she sniffed. “I hope you choke on your skinny new girlfriend’s thong.”

As if he sensed her sadness, the wolf came over and rubbed against her side. Bride sank down to the floor to pull him into a tight hug.

The wolf didn’t complain at all as she let her tears fall into his snowy fur. He sat there quietly with his head on her shoulder as pain flooded her.

How could she have been so stupid as to think for a minute that she loved Taylor? Why had she given him so much of her life and time when he’d only been using her?

Was she really so desperate for love that she would lie to herself about him?

“I just wanted someone to love me for me,” she whispered to the wolf. “Is that so wrong?”

Vane couldn’t breathe as Bride held him in a death grip and her words tore through him. Worse, he understood exactly what she meant. Rejected by everyone except his brother and sister, he knew that the only thing that had saved him from being the omega wolf in his pack had been his willingness to kill anyone who tried to make him or Fang a scapegoat.

Every time they had tried to pick on them, Vane had fought back, and with maturity, he’d grown to such a size that no one dared challenge him again.

Not even his father.

How could anyone hurt Bride like this? His heart pounded wildly as the wolf in him craved blood from the man who made her cry.

He didn’t understand what kind of man could voluntarily let her go. Once his kind mated, it was eternal. Unbreakable.

And now that he had confirmation that she was in fact his predestined mate, he was honor bound to protect her until she either finished their mating ritual by accepting him or they parted ways.

The latter wouldn’t affect her at all. But as a wolf, he would never be able to have sex with another female so long as Bride lived.

That was completely unacceptable to him. Vane Kattalakis wasn’t meant for enforced celibacy. The idea of spending the next few decades impotent was enough to make him do someone damage.

But how could a human ever accept an animal as her mate?

Damn the Fates for this. They were evil bitches who lived for no other purpose than to make others suffer.

The phone rang. Bride released him and went to answer it while Vane nosed around the small, cramped room. It was a dismal place.

“Hey, Tabby.” Bride pulled a sheet away from a table and sent a box falling.

Vane yelped and dodged away from it.

Bride patted his head, then moved the box. “You didn’t have to do that, you know?” He could sense she was a bit irritated at her friend, but underneath she seemed pleased. “Okay, I’m coming to let you in.”

Bride hung up the phone, then grabbed her keys and opened her door. Vane followed her outside to the street where she opened the wrought-iron door to let Tabitha, who stood on the other side with a wheeled cart loaded with bags, into the courtyard.

“Good grief!” Bride said as she saw bags. “What did you do?”

Tabitha shrugged. “Creature comforts every woman should have.” She handed a six-pack of Corona Light beer over to Bride, then wheeled her cart inside.

Bride locked the door and followed Tabitha.

Vane trailed behind them.

Once they were inside the small apartment, Tabitha smiled down at him. “I had a feeling you’d still be here.”

She pulled a bone out of the top sack and unwrapped it.

He grimaced inwardly as she set it down on the ground. There was no way in hell he was going to chew on that.

His gaze went to Bride. She was the only chew toy that interested him.

Bride stood with her hands on her hips. “Tabitha—”

“Don’t, Bride. As a recent member of the I-Ain’t-Got-No-Man-and-Don’t-Ever-Want-Another-One Club, I know the last thing you need is to be alone tonight.” She pulled a set of silk sheets out of the sack.

“What are these?”

“I told you, creature comforts. We have everything in here. Krispy Kreme doughnuts, beer, soda, creme horns, potato chips, dip, and enough hunk-filled DVDs to sink the
Titanic.
It’s time for a hunk fest of men who can’t break your heart.” Tabitha handed her a small bag.

Bride shook her head. “Thank you, Tabby. I really appreciate this.”

“No prob.”

Vane sat back as Tabitha hooked up the TV and VCR while Bride opened up boxes that held plates and silverware.

“I’m glad I kept all this,” Bride said as she dusted off a crate and set it up like a coffee table in front of the TV. “Taylor didn’t want all my things mixed in with his. I should have known then, shouldn’t I?”

It was all Vane could do to stay in wolf form. He wanted to soothe her so much, but didn’t dare. Especially not with Tabitha present.

“Don’t think about it, hon,” Tabitha said as she popped the sealed top off the beer with her bare hand and handed it to Bride. “We never see the signs we don’t want to see. You know? Look on the bright side, at least your guy didn’t leave you because you were nuts.”

“You’re not nuts.”

Tabitha gave a disbelieving laugh at that. “Yeah, right. Amanda aside, only fruits and nuts come out of my family tree. But hey, at least we’re entertaining.”

Bride gave her a chiding stare. “Does Mina know you say that?”

“Mina? She’s a bigger loon than I am. Have you seen her collection of ancient vampire-killing kits? I swear she’s the one who made that anonymous bid at Sotheby’s for that turn-of-the-century vampire-slaying kit.”

Tabitha placed an entire doughnut into her mouth and swallowed it whole.

Bride wrinkled her nose at the action. “Please tell me how you stay so skinny eating the way you do. I barely eat half a Pop-Tart and I gain thirty pounds. I swear I’ve seen you eat more tonight than I eat in an entire week.”

Tabitha licked the sugar from her fingers. “You sound like Amanda.”

“Why would she say that? You guys are twins and she’s every bit as twiggy as you are.”

“Yeah, but she’s a good fifteen pounds heavier than I am and she hates me for it. I don’t know why you guys complain, at least you two have boobs. I have the body of a twelve-year-old boy.”

Bride scoffed. “Any time you want, I’ll trade you.”

Vane growled at that. The last thing he wanted was a skinny mate. There was nothing wrong with Bride, and if he were in human form, he’d show her exactly what those lush curves did to him.

Unfortunately, he needed her girlfriend to leave first.

“Is something wrong, boy?” Tabitha asked as she came over to him.

He trotted over to Bride.

Tabitha gaped at him. “Well, I’ve just been dissed by Benji. Jeez. I think you’ve picked up a lifelong friend here, Bride. Just wait until he finds out your dad is the if-you-love-them-neuter-them king.”

Vane cringed in spite of himself.

They wouldn’t dare …

“Shush, Tabby, you’ll scare him.” She looked down at him as she stroked his chin. “But you’re right, he hasn’t been fixed.”

And he damned well wasn’t going to be, either.

“Maybe I should take him over to Dad’s tomorrow and have him look him over.”

“You going to keep him, then?” Tabitha asked.

Bride lifted his head so that she could look him directly in the eyes. “What do you think, Mr. Wolf? You want to stay with me for a little while?”

She had
no
idea. If he had his way, he would be a permanent addition.

Chapter 3

Vane stood outside the bathroom in human form while Bride took a shower. Tabitha had left a short time ago after threatening one last time to hunt down Bride’s ex and hurt him.

If Vane ever laid hands on the bastard, there wouldn’t be enough left of him for Tabitha to bother with. Not that he should feel that way. After all, if Bride hadn’t been on the outs with the man, she wouldn’t have been his tonight.

And he might never have known that she was his mate.

But that was human rationale and human rationale had no place in his animal world.

“I’m not human,” he breathed, feeling the profound pain of that statement. At least he wasn’t
fully
human.

No one, not even him, was really sure what he was.

He was a cursed hybrid who belonged to no real group. Half Arcadian, half Katagaria, Vane had been born in the native form of a wolf pup only to find his native form changed to human once he hit puberty.

He flinched as he recalled the day he’d changed over. The terror of it. The fear. The confusion. All of his life, he’d existed solely as a wolf, and then for a few months, against his will, he’d been locked inside a human body and unable to transform back into a wolf at all. His new body had been alien to him. He hadn’t known how to eat as a man, how to survive or to cope. Even walking had been difficult at first. He’d been assailed by human emotions and feelings. Human sensations.

Worst of all, he’d been weak. Helpless.

Nothing had ever been more degrading to him than to realize he couldn’t fight back. That he was completely reliant on his brother for survival.

Every night he’d prayed that come the morning he would be an animal again, and every morning he awoke to the horror that he was a man.

If not for Fang and Anya, his pack would have killed him. Luckily, his brother and sister had shielded him from the others and had helped him hide the fact that he was no longer a pure wolf.

For centuries he had hidden from everyone, even himself, the fact that after his puberty he held a human heart.

How could such a change even be possible?

Yet here he was: a living contradiction. A living impossibility.

And he was mated to a regular human.

Vane clenched his marked hand. He couldn’t hide the truth of his physical being from the Fates. They had known what he was and they had sought to bind him to a human woman.

Why?

Life as a hybrid was hard enough. The last thing he wanted was to father children who would be even more outcast than he was.

Would they be human or Were-Hunter?

And all those arguments telling him why he couldn’t mate with Bride didn’t amount to anything when the human heart inside him craved the woman on the other side of that closed door.

Even now he could imagine what she must look like in there, naked. The water sliding against her pale skin as her hands slid over her body, soaping her thighs, her …

The wolf in him demanded he kick it down and claim her.

The man in him just wanted to hold her close and protect her.

He’d never been so torn. So confused.

So damned horny!

Vane trailed his hand over the cool silk pajamas that Bride had pulled out of one of her boxes and left on the chair beside the door. They held her unique scent of strawberry potpourri and woman. He lifted the top and inhaled the richness of her as his groin burned and strained.

It was all he could do to not go to her in the shower and take her again. But it wouldn’t accomplish anything other than to terrify her.

She was human and knew nothing of his world. She knew nothing of him.

A wave of hopelessness consumed him. He didn’t know how to court a human female. Not to mention that his being mated to her didn’t really affect her at all.

She could leave him and live a nice, normal life with another man. She could fall in love with anyone and bear that man’s children.

Leaving her to that end would be the decent thing to do. By the very laws that governed his people, he couldn’t force her to take him as her mate. His own parents were proof of that. For three weeks his father had kept his mother chained against her will. He’d brutally tried to force her into accepting a Katagari male as her mate.

No amount of violence had worked.

His Arcadian mother had refused, even after she’d learned she was pregnant. To her, all of the Katagaria were animals who should be slaughtered without compassion. Vicious even by Katagaria standards, his father had never tried to show her any other side of himself.

Then again, his father had never had a more tender side. Markus was violent at best, lethal at worst. Vane and Fang both bore enough scars inside and out to prove that.

So the three-week window of mating opportunity had closed for his parents and left both of them frigid and sterile. Since then his parents had lived in open warfare with each other’s people.