Suddenly, she darted towards him and wrapped herself around him. “You aren’t leaving this time, are you?”
He tunneled his fingers into her hair and forced her gaze to his. “No. I’m not leaving this time.”
“Promise.”
And this time, he answered her, and meant it. “I promise. Good, bad, or ugly, you’re stuck with me.”
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Not until the damnable magic you have etched in your palm is gone. I hate magic. I hate it so much.”
And so did Shi. More in that moment than he thought possible since that magic kept him from making her truly his.
***
It was an hour later when Carmen stepped onto the front porch of the ranch house alone, the hot night suffocating her despite the recent sunset. Shi was out back in some sort of building behind the house with Kole, Nico and Jacob, doing some sort of planning for her father’s appearance. She was a wreck, so close to the chance to have both the men she loved in her life, and terrified it would go wrong.
A sudden chill rushed over her despite the heat, and she instinctively took a step backwards. The blond man, the Benedanti appeared in front of her. A second later, her father stood beside him. Her father, who had simply appeared using magic to transport him, when that should be impossible.
“Father?” she gasped.
“Take her back to my quarters,” he ordered the Benedanti. “I’ll deal with Shi once and for all.”
The Benedanti stepped towards her. “Wait!” She yelled. “We’re mated. Shi and I are mated. We live together and we die together.”
Her father’s eyes turned red. Red like a virus infected wolf which made no more sense than him using magic to travel. She had no idea what he was anymore, or who he was, for that matter. “I’m proof that isn’t true,” he said. “And don’t think I’m not prepared to make sure it’s not true for you either.”
“You want me, here I am,” Shi said from behind her and she jumped when a gun went off. The Benedanti traitor collapsed to the ground, dead far easier than she thought one of their kind could die. Suddenly, she stood between her mate and her father – the one thing that separated the two wolves she loved the most in this world. Her father cried out and dropped to his knees. Carmen whirled around and found Shi holding the necklace. Frantically, she looked between the two men. Her father gasped and held his throat.
“Carmen...Carmen,” he croaked.
Shi started towards her father and she launched herself at Shi. “Stop! Stop! You’re killing him!”
Shi shackled her around the waist and tried to set her aside but it was too late. She felt the air shift and change. She knew her father had just disappeared. “Oh God. What have I done?” She turned in Shi’s arms to confirm her father was gone, and then turned back to Shi. “I panicked. I didn’t want him to die.”
“I know,” Shi said calmly. “It’s okay. We’ll find him.”
The air shifted again and a roar filled the air. Carmen whirled around to find her father shifting to wolf. Shi shoved her aside and to her horror watched him shift and launch himself at her father and she knew this was a fight to the death. And that was when all hell broke loose. Suddenly, Rebel wolves charged from around the parameters. The ranch was under attack.
All around Carmen there were wolves fighting, but she stood on that porch, frozen, unable to move, until one of those wolves launched himself her direction. Operating on pure instinct, not even aware she knew it was there, Carmen picked up the gun Shi had dropped when he shifted and landed a bullet in between her attacker’s eyes. It dropped like a rock and she reached down and grabbed the necklace and a second gun, realizing right then what she had to do. She was going to shoot her father and her mate. How else was she going to stop them from killing each other?
Shi felt the bullet to his shoulder a moment before he heard Alexander’s roar of pain, and Shi rolled and began to shift, knowing he’d heal instantly. Alexander did the same thing. The gun went off again and Shi focused trough the crush of bones and bite of the bullet his body was grinding past skin, to gape in disbelieve. Carmen was not only holding the gun but he was pretty sure she put the bullet in him, but she’d just shot her father with another one.
Alexander roared again and started to shake, shifting with obvious pain. Carmen dropped to her knees beside him, and fear pushed Shi towards her, crawling in desperateness to get to her before his shift was complete. He didn’t know what Alexander was capable of and he didn’t want to find out at the expense of Carmen. She reached down towards Alexander and he caught the flash of the necklace a second before Alexander sat up grabbed Carmen by the hair. The necklace dropped to the ground. Shi was there in an instant, snatching the chain and maneuvering so that he was slamming it against Alexander’s chest, trying to free Carmen. The wolf roared and let go of Carmen and the necklace burned into his skin, seeming to crawl like a snake through his flesh and wrap his neck on its own.
Alexander screamed in pain and Carmen screamed with him. Shi grabbed her and held her, while she pressed her face to his shoulder. Seconds that felt like hours passed until the screams stopped. Alexander went completely still, and Shi feared he was dead, that Carmen had lost her father and she would blame him. That in the end, magic would destroy them all.
One week later...
Chapter Eight
With a blanket wrapped around her, and wearing one of Shi’s t-shirts, Carmen sat on a thick rug in front of a fireplace, watching the flames leap and jump, when only days before, she’d been in sunshine and heat. The cold days and nights were a shock to her system after Vegas, but unavoidable considering the underground Alaska facility was the Benedanti’s secret headquarters. To the world of The Society, her father was on special assignment at the Benedanti’s training facility. To Carmen, he was a stranger she hoped would become her father again, not the stranger who stared blankly at the walls. But he was alive, and the Benedanti had given her hope that they could save him, and that was what mattered.
Carmen smiled as Shi joined her, wrapping himself around her from behind and holding a cup of hot chocolate to her lips. She sipped the warm, yummy beverage. She was pretty sure he was naked, just the way she liked him. “You do know how to win a girl’s heart.”
“Do I?” he asked, nuzzling her hair.
“You do,” she said, her stomach fluttering with a mix of arousal and emotion. He’d been there for her every step of the way with her father, just as he had when she’d lost her mother. This place felt more like home than The Society had in a very long time, and she knew it was because Shi was here. It didn’t hurt that she and Aylia, Nico’s mate, had become fast friends, either, and that they had been given an open invitation to stay as long as they wished.
“So you say I know how to win a woman’s heart,” Shi said, setting the cup aside. “Enough to make this thing between us forever?”
She sucked in a breath, knowing what he was telling her, and grabbing his hand. Her eyes prickled with the absence of the magic mark that had kept them from mating. She twisted in his arms. “You...we can-”
“Yeah. We can. And by choice.” He slid his hand into her hair. “I choose you for the rest of my life. The question is – do you choose me?”
Carmen leaned back and pulled his shirt over her head, but his eyes held hers as he leaned against the table behind him, and pulled her on him. “I choose you,” she whispered, too emotional to find her voice fully. And when he was buried deep inside her, filling her as he had her life, kissing her with so much passion that he both stole her breath and gave her the next breath she took at the same time, she knew she’d found her forever.
A long time later, she lay on her side in front of him, the fire crackling and burning in front of them. Carmen stared sleepily down at the crescent moon on her palm before she started to drift to sleep. Just when her lashes were heavy, when the room began to fade, Shi’s cell phone started to ring and a knock sounded on the door.
Carmen jerked to a sitting
position and Shi sat up and grabbed the phone. On edge, Carmen waited to hear what came next, afraid it was about her father, relieved when Shi ended the call with a wolfish grin. “Aylia’s finally in labor. She’s asking for you.” He chuckled. “And according to the nurse, Nico isn’t the calm leader we all know and trust. He’s freaking out and making them all crazy.”
Carmen grinned and jumped to her feet with excitement. A new baby. A new magical baby. Maybe, just maybe, magic wasn’t all bad. In fact, in this case, knowing how in love Nico and Aylia were, she had to believe it was the beginning of something very special. This was the first baby born part wolf and part Benedanti in centuries. That had to be special.
Epilogue
Darkness. There was darkness everywhere. Alexander could feel nothing but the weight of it, suffocating him.
Alexander.
He froze at the soft, feminine voice that hummed along his nerve endings.
Alexander.
An image of a beautiful blond filled his mind, wiping away the darkness. The pain eased, his limbs warmed. Peace. He felt peace. He could sleep.
Alexander.
Alexander.
Alexander!
He jerked and felt adrenaline race through his veins. He knew the voice. He knew this woman. Yes. The beautiful blonde. Her name...what was her name? A coppery taste filled his mouth, bled into his taste buds, and her image came to him again. She was kissing him, leaning over him and he wanted to touch her but he couldn’t seem to move. And there was...blood on her lips, on his lips. She was his worst enemy. She was the very thing that had stripped his world away and ruined his life. She was...a vampire.
With an intake of breath, Alexander sat up, his gaze wildly taking in the sterile hospital room he lay in. He reached up and wiped his mouth, and then looked at his hand. There was blood on it. He growled low in his throat and swung his legs off the bed. He was hunting a vampire and her name was Isabella.
THE END of the story but not the series!
Look for Alexander’s story – Wicked Werewolf Magic – coming soon!
Lisa Renee Jones, Wicked Werewolf Passion
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