To Seduce an Omega (8 page)

She’d stopped to buy fresh meat on her way. Now she felt as though someone stuffed a boulder in her bag. Unlike most Lykae, Viola refused to eat her meat raw. She considered going to bed hungry rather than start a fire so she could cook. Anything to rest her knee.

Then she heard the crying. Inside her hut, someone sobbed as though the world was about to end. Iris? Out here. Her half sister sounded heartbroken. She let her bag drop to the floor and forced her weary body up a gear. As she approached her door, she called, “I’m home now. Try to calm down and tell me what’s wrong. I’ll just light a candle, and I’ll be right there.”

Iris cannoned out the bedroom and hurled herself into Viola’s arms. “Thank the stars it’s you. I’ve run away, and I’m never going back to Prowlerville. Not while Fleur’s there, anyway. Say I can move in with you. Please.”

Pain forgotten, Viola sat on the floor and pulled her half sister in for a hug. Iris winced, then buried her face against Viola’s shoulder. Her chest heaved as she wept again. Viola held her and let her cry out her pain. Finally, she stroked Iris’s hair. “Did Fleur hurt you?”

Iris shuddered, hiccupped, and nodded. “She smiled and sent the servants away, then said she’d brought me a gift. I didn’t understand, but once she locked the door, she ladled into me with her leather belt. I thought she meant to kill me. I’ve never been so scared.”

Oblivious to her throbbing knee, Viola crouched beside Iris. “You’re safe now. I promise.”

Iris sobbed harder. “It hurt so much I curled into a ball and begged her to stop, but she just hit me harder and kept smiling. I swear the more she hurt me, the more she enjoyed it. She’s bigger and stronger than me, and I felt so helpless. She hurt me so bad. I’m never going back. Please say I can stay here with you.”

Lost for words, Viola held the girl close and stroked her back.

Iris groaned. “Don’t. I’m sore all over, but my back’s the worst. Once she left, I defied King Caleb’s rules and flashed to the only safe place I could think of. Your hut. If I go back after running away, she’ll kill me. I daren’t tell Pops because of… Well… The thing is… Viola, he let his bodyguards hurt you, so why would he stop Fleur hurting me? Please let me stay here with you.”

Furious that Fleur had turned on her youngest half sister, Viola pulled her hand away from the girl’s back. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ll light more candles and smear some arnica to your bruises. I already planned to dose myself up with painkillers after walking back from town, but you need some too.”

She opened the root cellar where she kept her medicines. Cool and dark, it was the perfect storage cupboard for her wares. Unthinking, she dropped the four remaining golds Iris had thrust at her in her empty copper jar and pulled out her tincture. She made Iris down a dose and did the same herself. Afterward they both screwed up their noses and said, “Yuck.”

As she replaced the bottle, Viola told Iris, “Slip off your blouse and let me tend your bruises. Afterward, I’ll brew some chamomile tea to get rid of the god-awful taste of that tincture. Fleur shouldn’t have touched you, but what on earth happened to make her so angry?”

Iris tried to be brave, but the occasional sob escaped her as she slipped out of her top. “She heard me talking to Titus about Tansy’s lucky escape and the shocking way Pops treats you. She told me to keep my mouth shut or else.”

Viola winced when she saw the welts crisscrossing her half sister’s body. Raised and red, some still oozed blood. “Sweetheart, you should change into your natural wolf and back again. I guarantee you’ll feel better.”

Iris shrugged. “I should have thought of that, only she scared me so much I panicked and came here. No one’s ever laid into me the way Fleur did back at the castle.”

She shut her eyes, and instantly a wolf cub stood in her place. Viola rubbed her hand through the young wolf’s fur. “So beautiful. Okay, sweetie. Time to turn back and let me tend any remaining bruises.”

A moment later Iris shifted back to human form. She managed a smile as she straightened her skirt. “I’m glad our clothes change with us. I don’t hurt so much now. How bad does it look?”

Viola winced as she spread arnica cream on her little sister’s back. “It’s a million times better than before, but you’ll still be sore in the morning.”

Seeing Iris hurt like this brought too many memories. Viola would never forget the night Zebadiah’s thugs laid into her, but they’d used their fists—at first. They’d enjoyed her every shriek of pain and mocked her attempts to escape. Then one of them produced a lump hammer.

Too weak to defend herself, she’d pleaded and begged, but they’d still broken her bones and shattered her knee. At least none of Iris’s joints were twisted beyond repair.

Iris sniffed hard. “I’ve never known Fleur turn like that. She told me to stay away from Tansy and to stay away from you. She even said Pops wasn’t your father, but that’s just rubbish, isn’t it?”

Viola had sometimes wondered the same thing, but if Zebadiah hadn’t fathered her, then who had? A few years back when she lived in the corn mill with Elspeth, Viola would study pack members and hope to spot a family resemblance. Not that she ever found one. Even her eyes were different from the rest of the pack’s, but she’d finally decided she’d inherited different coloring from her human mother.

Now Iris roused all the suspicions Viola had dismissed as ridiculous, but she needed to comfort her youngest half sister before she considered Fleur’s words. “Definitely rubbish. Right. I promised chamomile tea, and I’ve some fresh flowers drying outside my door. Stay here, and I’ll pick some for us. Then we’ll decide what you should do.”

Iris nodded, gritted her teeth, and set about building a fire just big enough to boil a kettle. As Viola stepped out the door, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. The nightjars had stopped their churring cries and fallen silent. No owls hooted. No nocturnal creatures scuttled in her garden. The breeze felt like a static charge tingling over Viola’s skin.

She slid back inside, grabbed her bow, and hung her quiver of arrows at her waist. Iris stared at her, but Viola put a finger to her lips and bent to whisper in the youngster’s ear. “There’s something strange out there. This hut’s no real protection, and it marks our position too clearly. You should be brave and flash back to the great hall.”

Iris frowned and shook her head. “I drained my flashing ability when I popped up in your hut. Besides, it’s not allowed.”

Viola grabbed a blanket and draped it around her sister’s shoulders before she pulled her toward the door. “Then we need to find the murder thorn where Tansy sheltered and see if the passage she’d hacked into its center hasn’t already grown over. It’s dangerous, but you’re only little, and once inside, you’ll be safe. Whatever’s out there doesn’t know you’re here, so once you’re hidden, stay quiet and still while I lead them away.”

Although the youngster stumbled in unfamiliar territory, they crept along the road, heading away from Prowlerville. Viola moved with the certainty of a hunter, albeit not a good one. The youngster looked ready to protest, but Viola laid her finger over Iris’s lips. “No arguments. Remember, this is my backyard, and I know the lay of the land.”

Chapter Eight

Glad to be out of the oppressive dining room, Titus hurried to his room. Zebadiah spouted rubbish about the Lykae king forbidding wolves from flashing, but for the moment Titus would be circumspect. Once in private, he flashed back to the bridge on the road from Prowlerville. His head spun from Fleur’s incessant chattering, and he’d hated the way her hand had constantly crept toward his dick. Damn, but he needed another shower to cleanse her scent off of him. His inner wolves howled for him to make things right with Viola, but that meant betraying everything he’d felt for Jilly.
Felt? Past tense? Elves’ blood, it’s like that one-sided bond never existed. How is that possible?

Finally, he could let go of his past pain and concentrate on the present. He’d been born to protect and provide for his mate—for Viola. He hadn’t felt this good in centuries, and he finally had something worthwhile to live for. If he took it slowly, he could build a future with his courageous hedgewitch, but he’d have to eat crow first.

Viola wasn’t the woman he’d wanted to claim for over one hundred years, but she filled his thoughts and hardened his body in ways no one—not even Jilly—had before. He could drown in the blue of Viola’s eyes. Her rose-and-lavender perfume had filled his head and stolen his heart. Most of all, meeting her had freed him from his emotional prison. Around her, he felt whole.

She’s my once and forever, my true-mate
. His new feelings made him light-headed, and if he’d been a romantic man, he’d have danced in the moonlight. Even his wolves stood to attention, eager to see Viola again. He’d never heard of a mated Lykae getting a second chance, but for once, his world felt right. He’d forgotten how wonderful that could be.

When he thought about the way Viola’s curves had fit so perfectly against him, his heart melted as quickly as his cock stiffened. Her rose-and-lavender essence reminded him of sunny summer’s day. The sort he should spend making lazy love to his mate—to Viola. He just needed to make things right with her first.

Everyone told him that mating was a onetime, one-partner thing, and usually it bound two lovers together until the world stopped turning. It had left him alone and hurting. Part of him thought he still owed Jilly his loyalty, but she’d never been loyal to him. Maybe putting his life on hold to protect her had become a bad habit. Now he needed to move on…with Viola.

Tonight, he’d take the first step toward winning her heart by hunting down a gazelle and seeing her well fed. His wolves yipped in excitement and demanded he hunt now. No Lykae had ever craved a second chance more.

Again his thoughts drifted to Jilly, but for once the pain of her leaving didn’t make him want to punch his packmates senseless or down an ocean of booze. Her youth had made him feel like a predator chasing her innocence—grooming her even—so he watched her from a distance like some sort of crazed stalker. He’d railed at the Fates for pairing him with a child, but if he’d ever fully claimed Jilly, he’d never have found Viola.

Jilly had been imprisoned in the redheaded witch’s castle for so long she’d forgotten her Lykae heritage. With his torn ear, broken nose, and muscular physique, he’d terrified her. Mating should be a two-way street, but the more he’d tried to get close to Jilly, the more she drove him away. He’d lost everything—home, pack, and freedom of choice—for a woman who’d wanted his friendship as little as she wanted his heart.

Once, he’d hated the Fates for linking him with a child. Now he wondered if they were saving him for a woman who hadn’t been born when Jilly vanished the first time around. Every day, it ate away at him that he’d not protected his young mate better, and every night his guilt had stopped him from sleeping. Now, he accepted that protecting her had been her father’s job.

It wasn’t that Titus had forgotten about Jilly, and he vowed that one day he’d find her kidnapper and make that woman suffer. It was more that his incomplete mating bond shattered when he found Viola. He hadn’t realized it before, but that brittle bond had felt like a noose slowly choking the joy from his soul. The pull he felt for Viola transcended anything and everything. Now he’d found her, he had a second chance at the happiness he’d thought he’d lost forever.

The grass seemed greener, his world more vibrant and glowing. The scents of the night—damp moss and small rodents scuttling through the darkness—made his nose twitch. Then the wind carried the scent of gazelle toward him, and he shifted to natural wolf form. The need to appease Viola drove him, but he’d never felt so weary. Contentment, he supposed.

His primal wolf raged inside him, wanting to rampage through the forest and claim Viola. Even his natural wolf wanted to sit on his haunches and howl—that or curl up, rest his head on his paws, and sleep. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed.

With Viola, life was worth living. He needed to smooth things over between them before he could move on and claim her. That or screw her so hard she walked bowlegged for days. Tonight, if he got lucky, he’d do both.

Still in natural wolf form, he stayed distant from the gazelle herd, circling until he maneuvered upwind of them. Once he’d dropped to his belly, he crept through the undergrowth, his every move a symphony of stealth and silence.

An aging stag grazed a short distance from the herd. Jaws open, Titus leaped. The gazelle went down beneath his weight. The herd panicked and bounded into the forest as Titus took his prey’s throat. The stag twitched and bled out at his feet.

Titus loosed his primal wolf—seven and a half feet of fur and fangs—and hoisted the carcass over his shoulder. As he loped toward Viola’s hut, even his primal form felt subdued and weary. His human side wondered if he should ask Viola for a tonic or pick-me-up. He could pay her well over the cost and help make her life easier.

No candles burned in Viola’s hut, and no sounds came from within. Disgruntled, he dropped the stag’s carcass outside her door. He refused to leave without seeing her, so he turned human and sat with his back to the outside wall. His eyelids closed, but he jerked himself awake, determined to offer Viola the apology she deserved.

His body drooped with exhaustion. As his eyes closed again, he tried to sit up and shift into his primal form, but his inner wolves were already sleeping. This unnatural weariness didn’t sit right.

Drugs! Someone must have slipped drugs into his meal, but they’d have to be powerful narcotics to last through his shape-shifts. His last thought before he slipped into an unnatural sleep was that he hoped he hadn’t led his hunters to Viola’s door.

* * * *

Viola waited while Iris scrambled into the middle of the murder thorn where Tansy had hidden. Finally, the youngster pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and cowered at the foot of the thickest trunk.

Viola did her best to sound cheerful despite the prickling sensation between her shoulder blades. “Curl up and pretend you’re a mouse. Stay still and quiet no matter what you see or hear. Come dawn, when your shifting ability’s recharged, flash back home and stay there. Just keep your head down and avoid Fleur. She might be our sister, but sometimes I think she’s not quite sane.”