Ellie didn’t know how much time had passed when she finally was able to calm her breathing. It slowly entered her awareness that Rylek was stroking her hair gently and murmuring softly to her. She could barely understand half of what he said and gradually realized he was speaking in another language with only the occasional phrase in English.
“Ellie, beautiful one, I am sorry,” he said finally, when her breathing took on a more normal rhythm. “Please know that I would not rush your understanding, but my seconds will have felt the pull of my change, and I feel sure they will arrive soon. They are very serious in their duties and will want to be certain there is no danger to us.”
With one last pass of his hand over her hair, Rylek rose and moved to the door. He opened it, and Ellie was grateful for his warning, as it was clear that the two men skidding to a stop in the hallway were expecting to find a battle in progress. It took a moment for her to recognize Valeri, since the last time she had seen him, he hadn’t had fangs or claws.
Valeri and the man beside him both seemed larger than they had been earlier in the evening, with eyes that glowed in the dim light of the hall.
Ellie dropped her head back into her lap with a muffled groan. Rylek ushered the men into the room quickly and locked the door.
“There is no danger here. I chose the path of honesty with my mate. I
showed her my true nature and gave her a choice.”
He indicated Ellie, and all three men looked at her. She kept her cheek pressed against her knees and concentrated on breathing.
“The little human female looks to be in distress,” the third man said carefully. “You showed her the change. Is she able to speak yet?” “She has spoken, yes,” Rylek said, sounding almost proud. “She
told me to stop being a wolf right now.” “Good advice, Alpha,” Valeri said dryly.
Alpha, Ellie thought. Of course. It explained so much, his snarling reaction to Henry, the slices in her dress, and the two long scratches on her body.
Suddenly, another thought struck her, and she lifted her head to glare at Valeri.
“Are you a werewolf, too?” she demanded.
Valeri bowed from the waist. “We are vulfen,” he stated with some superiority. “We do not use the term of werewolf, as that is a word invented by superstitious humans trying to explain something they do not understand. We are vulfen, blessed by the goddess with dual natures. I am a man, as you see, but I am equally a wolf. It is a gift we have been given.”
Ellie felt ridiculously like apologizing. He acted as if being called a werewolf was almost an insult. She certainly didn’t want to insult three werewolves—no, vulfen—in her own living room. Lord knows what damage they could do with tooth and claw.
But, really, they seemed quite civilized, all standing and waiting for her to respond, not acting beastly at all.
“Are there many…vulfen?”
Valeri looked to Rylek, who inclined his head.
“Yes,” Valeri said, “there are three Russian Clans, and around the world there are many more clans.”
Ellie cleared her throat, not sure how to word her next question.
“Will you show me your wolf?” she asked Valeri.
Rylek made a brief, arrested movement, and then was still.
Valeri came forward slowly and transformed himself. Ellie was surprised to note that his wolf was also somewhat stocky and a bit smaller than Rylek in that form, as was the man. He was a dark
golden color, very unusual for a true wolf, she thought. It would be easy to tell the difference between Valeri and Rylek, even in these furry bodies. He barked once, making her jump, and waved his bushy tail before changing back into Valeri.
Ellie licked her dry lips.
“You both came back wearing clothes,” she said, confused. “Is that normal?”
Rylek spoke up. “If we are overcome by emotion, or injury, we may sometimes change too quickly, and the clothing shreds. However, under normal conditions, clothing is not destroyed by the change so long as it is made of a natural fiber.”
“How can that be? Why should it matter what the clothing is made of?” she asked curiously.
The men exchanged glances, and their shrugs to one another made
Ellie think that none of them could or would answer that question. “The change is a natural process and does not destroy things
belonging in nature. Or some clans simply say, the goddess wills it so,” Rylek said. It was clear, for him, that was answer enough.
“Won’t you sit down,” she said politely after a moment and didn’t
know whether to laugh or cry when all three men sat.
At least they were well-behaved legendary beasts, she thought a little wildly. And Valeri didn’t have fangs anymore, so perhaps they would calm down now and allow her to convince herself that she had been experiencing some strange hallucination. After a lifetime of good sense, it really was too much to ask that she just suddenly start believing in creatures from a fairy tale.
Even seated, the three broad-shouldered men made her extra long sofa look like a child’s miniature. She was not a small woman, but they made her feel positively tiny in comparison.
She was beginning to relax in their presence, but even so, she couldn’t take her eyes off them. Under her scrutiny, the third man moved uncomfortably, jostling Valeri and earning himself a quelling glance from Rylek.
“Ellie, I would like to formally introduce my seconds to you,” Rylek said carefully. “Valeri Sidarov you know already, and Miros Reitn, both trusted warriors, charged with the safety of all within my rule. They will be trusted also with the protection of my mate should I fail.”
Unspoken was the thought that if Rylek failed, it would have to be in the most extreme circumstances. A man like this, a leader and an Alpha, would never leave one of his own undefended. He would fight to the death for those he loved.
Both seconds stood again, and went down to one knee before her, bowing their heads. They didn’t rise again immediately, and Ellie had the strange feeling that they were waiting for her to do something. She looked at Rylek helplessly.
“They offer their lives for yours,” he said softly, and it came to her mind that he had done the same for her only moments ago. “It would be acceptable for you to touch their heads briefly, or even to kiss their foreheads, to acknowledge that gift.”
Ellie was hesitant, but leaned forward a little and touched each man in turn on the back of his bent head. At the brush of her hand upon him, Valeri raised his head and gave her an impudent grin before resuming his seat on the sofa.
Miros was slower to get up. He was huge, tall and broad, even bigger than Rylek. His face could never be described as handsome, rough and scarred as it was, but his expression was almost gentle, and he moved in a careful way. It seemed that he was unwilling to frighten the “little human female” any further.
“Since there is no immediate danger, Alpha, perhaps we should go back outside?” Miros asked politely, indicating himself and Valeri.
“Yes, my thanks,” Rylek responded formally, and the two vulfen warriors wasted no time in leaving.
Ellie sighed quietly in relief. Three large men in her small
apartment, civilized or otherwise, took up altogether too much physical space.
“Ellie, are you well?” Rylek asked after a moment. “Your cheeks have some color now. Perhaps you are ready to believe I am real?” His voice was hopeful. “You told me I could not be real.”
Ellie considered that she might be getting used to the idea of
Rylek as a wolf, or, a vulfen. She nodded. “Maybe,” she allowed.
“Then, are you recovering from your shock?” he pressed.
Ellie gave him a withering glance.
“There must have been a better way to tell me. You were trying to be as frightening as possible,” she accused.
“No, beautiful one, I want many things with you, but I do not want you to fear me,” he said quietly. “But there is the problem of my people’s need for secrecy. We have done such a good job of making ourselves into a legend, I think, that it becomes difficult to convince someone with whom we want to share this knowledge.
“There are not many humans who know of us. Very few human females would be strong enough for a full vulfen mating, and so our males do not even look among you.”
Something in his tone alerted her and she asked, “If you mated me, would that cause a problem with your people?”
Rylek stood up and began to pace back and forth in her living room. There was something predatory in the way he moved. She had noticed the quality back at the restaurant and marked the differences between Rylek and all the other men of her admittedly limited acquaintance, but she could never have guessed that there was such a fantastical explanation. She had chalked it up to pure sex appeal, that irresistible magnetism that some males had for females, and he certainly had that in abundance.
“There are those, even among my people, who will judge you as too weak to be an Alpha’s mate, simply because you are human,” he said. “I resisted you for so long because of that.”
Ellie was startled. “Resisted me for so long? But we only met tonight!”
Rylek had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, we met tonight. But I wanted you when I first saw you, and the hours moved too slowly. Hours! With a vulfen female, things would move much more quickly. It became torture to scent you near me, to serve your meal and watch you eat for someone else.”
He knelt and looked into her eyes.
“A beautiful woman eating is…part of the first mating ritual of my people. Deeply arousing to all males,” he said, his voice a deep masculine rumble. “Even more so to me because you are my mate, and your scent captivates me, intoxicates me. It is like suddenly drinking strong vodka when you have tasted only water, but the effect is many times more powerful than the best vodka. Truly, it is almost impossible to resist. I restrained myself, tried to deny that you could be mine, because you were fully human.”
“And because I was with a date,” Ellie added.
“No,” Rylek said immediately, “that is a human reaction. A vulfen would always take his mate from a lesser male. That human male you were with,” and here his voice dropped, as if he could barely restrain his growl, “could never stand against me in challenge. Indeed, the moment I moved to take you from him, he was easily persuaded to leave you to save his own life.”
Rylek bared his teeth. “I would never leave you for another male to take. Never. I would answer any challenge for you, keep you with me, and protect you at the cost of my own life. My precious Ellie, you must have no doubt of that!
“However, I had doubts about taking you because you are so deliciously human. And then later I was more certain of our compatibility together, and of your strength, but still I was determined not to drag you into my world. In the end, despite my best intentions to save you from the dangers of sharing my life, I could not let you leave with the human male. You are mine.”
His eyes were direct, intense, and Ellie shivered involuntarily.
“I will tell you now, the only thing that can save you from me is if
you choose at this moment to be set free. I have not given you the mating bite, and if you tell me to leave you, I will. But you must tell me to go now… while I can.”
Ellie pondered that for a moment.
“I have questions first,” she said carefully.
Her heart rate was rock-steady now, but her mind was a jumble of whirling thoughts.
“You are very attracted to me, this I know. There is a burning heat between us. We could melt the polar ice cap.”
His dark, slow smile flustered her, and she blew out a shaky
breath.
“Yes, I am attracted to you,” she said, frowning to show him how serious she was about this. “But I need to know about this bite. I’m sure it will be painful, but will it make me a wolf?”
“No,” Rylek said, surprised. “Well, yes it will hurt at first, but it will not truly injure you, and later, the bite will bring pleasure to us both. It will make you stronger, your eyesight and stamina will be better, things of that nature, but to become the wolf? It has not happened with the other human mates.”
“There are other human mates? Why didn’t you tell me that right away? How many others are there?” Ellie was very excited by this information. There were other human mates. She wouldn’t be the only one. It shouldn’t make a difference, but somehow it did.
“I do not know how many there are worldwide,” he said honestly, “but in the Russian Clans, fewer than half a dozen. There are none currently in Sidarov Clan, but Petrov has two, both older women who have borne vulfen young to their mates. I have seen them, of course, and they are involved in their communities. But they do not run with the hunt in the form of the wolf.”
She latched on to the most alarming piece of information first. “My babies,” she gulped, “would be wolves?”