Authors: Donna Lea Simpson
He ran one thumb down her cheek, relishing the soft texture of her skin, admiring the lush curve of her breast against his bare chest, and feeling every inch of her warm body stretched against his. In an instant he knew she was awakening; he felt the pulse of her heart rate quicken and the faint movement of her body. “Good morning,” he murmured against her mouth, and then he kissed her deeply. With returning strength and the memory of her infinite kindness the night before came a faint hope.
She responded, curling her arms around his neck and stretching against him. His body pulsed with awareness. He ran one hand down the curve of her spine to her bottom, and her squirming pleasure as he caressed her bare skin encouraged the rapid swelling of his shaft as it swiftly burgeoned and found the curve of her thigh and the concave sweetness where her legs and torso met.
Her breathing was tremulous and rapid, and he felt the pulse at the base of her throat under his lips as it leaped and her heart hammered. His lips trailed down over her throat and to her breasts, pulling back the fabric with his teeth and nuzzling the sweet peak of her nipples budding in his mouth. She had released all fear of him; he could feel it in her acceptance of his advances and her readiness for loveplay. Her hand sought him under the covers and stroked him slowly as he found her dampness and spread the tender lips with his fingers.
Her rich scent reached his nostrils and he pulled her fragrance in; she was ripe and sweet as a plum, and… he stopped, quivering with need but knowing it was not to be satisfied.
“Nik?” In the silvery dawn light, Elizabeth opened her eyes as he stopped touching her. “What is it?” She touched him still and his rod thickened in her hand, pulsing with need just as she was aching for him. Even if she couldn’t have him forever, even if he had no intention of ever marrying—and she could not stay with him in this role, this purgatory between mistress and wife—making love with him one last time, now knowing all he was… that would stay with her. But he had stopped and gazed at her with an aching intensity. Did he need to hear her to say it? “Nik,” she murmured. “Make love to me, please. Once more, just once more.”
He closed his eyes and his whole body quivered, shuddering with suppressed yearning; she could feel it in him, the desire and the need. He was sweating, his brow damp, as he restrained himself physically. “I can’t,” he groaned, clenching his teeth against a wave of desire.
“Why? You want me… I know you want me.” She curled herself provocatively around him, rolling on top of him and straddling his body, feeling his erection nudge her, making her damp with passionate craving. His resistance to her seduction urged her on. She moved and pushed herself down on the thick knob, relishing his response, the jerk of his body as he pulled back, trying not to give in to temptation.
“I just… can’t,” he said through his teeth.
“Yes, you can,” she said, brushing her hair over his chest and caressing the triangular muscle that capped his thick shoulder. The bloody bandage worried her, but as strong as he was he had defeated the poison; she felt it somehow, as if she was privy to his bodily sensations. She ran one hand down his arm, trailing her fingers over the contour of every steely muscle. She arched her back, moving, coating him with her wetness and feeling him spasm with suppressed passion. “You can. I know what you are now, Nik; I know
who
you are, and nothing has changed. I don’t care; you’re not an animal now, you’re a man.” She lay on his chest. “My man… for this one moment, at least. Make love to me,” she said softly.
“Ah, Elizabeth,” he groaned in her ear. “I can’t. You don’t understand. If I make love to you now, I will make you with child.”
“You can’t know that,” she gasped.
“Oh, yes, but I do.”
She reared up, straddling his thickly muscled waist. “How do you know?”
His eyes burned with fiercely restrained need. “I know. I can… I can smell it, taste it—it is like a flavor to me, a sweetness—the ripeness of you, the desire in your body to receive me and my own need to plant my seed. It is in you, the… the acknowledgment.”
“Of what?” she whispered, gazing down into his eyes.
“You are mine and always will be, till the end of time.” He stared up at her, tenderly pushing back one long strand of hair behind her ear. “And I am yours. Your life mate. The only one.
Until I die, I am yours, and you… you belong to me, just as I belong to you.”
“Until you die,” she repeated, rubbing his scruffy chin, the thick beard dark against the pallor of his skin. She was aware of him, still throbbing, as just the tip entered into her. He did not push and in fact held himself resolutely still beneath her. “But… but you don’t have a… a life mate. You don’t intend to marry. You told me so.”
He sighed. “And that is why I can’t… we can’t…”
“Make a child,” she finished for him.
He nodded, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears. He framed her face with his hands. “I love you,” he said, his voice a hoarse croak. “I will love you forever.”
The words were like a balm, and the last vestiges of doubt fled. “Then marry me,” she said, pushing down on him and watching his eyes roll back as he arched and thrust into her, his member throbbing, all control in her own grasp unless he was willing to toss her aside like a doll. “Marry me,” she cried, surrendering to desire. “Plant your seed, make a son… or a daughter.
Marry
me.” She sank down on him and kissed his lips, relishing the feel of him buried deep inside of her, their twined limbs pulling them so close not a quarter inch of space was left between them.
He groaned and rolled her over onto her back, drawing out but then thrusting back in, pushing deep, his muscles bunching; the sweet dance of male heat and female nectar, their sweat mingling, their mutual cries echoing up to the high ceiling, began. She felt the rising tide, tried to push it back, but gave herself over finally, feeling the ecstasy spiral in waves though her body, her skin shivering with delight, her muscles twitching, and her body reaching a delirium she had never thought possible. Waves of dizziness coursed through her until she no longer knew if she was on top, under him, or floating.
As he bucked and doubled above her, and she felt the heat of him bursting inside of her, her body drank him in as if she was long thirsty. She felt the welling of tears and they coursed down her cheeks.
I love you I love you I love you… forever
! Had she said it? Cried it out? Or only thought it?
She opened her eyes, her vision swimming with tears; he was gazing down at her, even as his thickness still filled her.
“Did you mean it?” he whispered, kissing her brow and the tears on her cheeks.
“Mean what?” she asked, kissing his lips.
“That you love me. That… that you’ll marry me? Despite everything?” He pushed back the damp curls on her forehead.
There was so much hope in his gaze, so much tremulous fear and longing. She reached up and touched his lips with one fingertip. “Yes, oh yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Elizabeth,” he sighed. “I think I will go mad from such happiness.” He kissed her tenderly, even as he grew soft within her, his appetite satisfied for the moment.
No one came near the room all morning. They talked, and slept, and then made love again as the sun arched into the sky. As they lay together finally, passion again happily satisfied but both awake, curled together, she asked, “Why did you decide never to marry? Was it… was it the werewolfism?” She still felt foolish saying such an odd word, but she must accept fact.
“No… no, not really.” He stroked her hair. “But for years now I have thought… been afraid, that madness was inherited among us children. I just didn’t know. Gerta was so…” He stopped and shook his head.
“You thought she killed them, Anna and Hans, didn’t you?”
“I was afraid it was so. I saw a figure that night, and I feared it was her. But it was Bartol.
How could I have thought it of poor Gerta? But it was not really just the inherited madness I feared; I knew I would need to spend my whole life looking after her. I would never send her into exile, bar her from her family and her children. How could I devote my life to a wife and children, then, when I knew I would need to take care of her so carefully?” He paused, a thoughtful look on his face. “Uta told me I was a fool for taking the whole burden on myself and allowing no one to help me. I think I should have listened to her, for she tried to tell me that many times. Perhaps if I had, things would not have become so dangerous… Bartol would not have gained such a hold over this family.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps not. There is no going back, Nik, to do things differently. How… how did you truly come to know you were… were a werewolf? I know you told me it was the night of the fire, but…”
He sighed deeply. “I have never told anyone this. Adele knows, but she has never asked for details.”
“But if I am to be your wife, I should know.”
“Hmm. I think you will say that often in our lifetime.” He kissed her forehead. “You will always know just what to say to me to make me do exactly what you wish. All right. In our family we are raised with a knowledge of werewolves, but no one told me I would become one. Although every von Wolfram male has the potential, it generally happens to only one male in every generation, most often to the eldest male, but sometimes just to… to the leader.
To the man who will take care of his family.”
She considered it. “That’s why you and Christoph cannot get along; although you thought it was your own harshness in needing to subjugate him, it is more than that. It’s not just his suspicions of you, and your frustration with him. In the normal course, he would have left the house, but he is—or has the potential to be—another dominant male… perhaps he will be a werewolf someday.”
Nik appeared to consider it, and understanding flitted into his eyes. “You could be right. I feared he would have the potential, but I did not trust him to use it wisely, nor was I sure. But it would explain much, I suppose, of the tension between us, if that is his fate. In nature, when the wolves are growing, males, as they reach adulthood, are ejected from the pack by the lead wolf if they are dominant in nature. Some males stay, but they will likely never breed.”
“Like Bartol,” she said with a shiver.
“Hmm. True. And the females stay. The dominant male’s mate—they choose one, you know, and stay together always—will be the dominant female and will protect the others.” He gazed at her and touched her hair. “That is you. My life mate. You, who protected Charlotte and rescued Gerta so many times.”
“You gave me courage; I knew you would be there when I needed you, and you always were.
Do you know, even when you were in your wolf state, I knew you were near.”
“Thank God you did not wait for me to ask for your help; you just thrust yourself into things.”
“Even when you tried to tell me I had no stake in this family, I knew I did.”
At long last they rose, and Nikolas ordered all who were able to gather in the drawing room.
He and Elizabeth had agreed that his family needed to understand what had happened over the last few days. Melisande at first did not want to leave her father’s side, but she was coaxed by Charlotte, who was regaining her strength and bossiness quickly. Even Uta had been carried down for this grand occasion and gazed around her in wonder at the room she had not entered for several years. Mina, who had sacrificed so much, was by her side in a chair, better, but still recovering from the massive dose of drug Gerta had, in her delusional state, delivered her.
Gerta was the only one not present; her health was still too precarious, and her emotional state fragile. Fanny was sitting with her.
Nikolas stood before the fire and stared at his family, but Elizabeth had eyes only for him. Her husband; he would be her husband forever, and her lover and friend, protector and devoted slave, he had said. She smiled and then caught Frau Liebner’s eyes on her, the intelligent blue eyes crinkled in thought.
“My family,” he said, gazing at each one in turn. His gaze rested on the clutched hands of Adele and the Count Delacroix, and he winked, while his frosty sister flushed a brilliant cerise. He had a smile for Charlotte, a solemn nod for Christoph, who returned it with a respectful bow, and a wink for his aunt Katrina. For Uta he reserved a quick kiss on her lace-covered head. She smacked him away and a titter of nervous laughter broke out.
“My family,” he said again, growing grave as he approached the subject of their terrible time.
“We have come through a time of horror, and we have all suffered in some way. Most particularly has my sister Gerta suffered. Without our knowledge we had clutched to our breast a serpent, Bartol Liebner, his poison endangering every family member and every family relationship. He was a murderer, a man so foul I cannot believe I never saw what was in his black heart. For that, I feel I owe you all a profound apology. Perhaps if I had asked for help… perhaps if I had—”
“Nikolas,” Count Delacroix said, interrupting, “do not blame yourself. We all had the opportunity to discover what he was, and even I, his… his closest friend—though I shudder to say those words—did not know what he was. His deception was masterful. It is over and he is gone.”
Nikolas cleared his throat. “You’re right, my old friend. It truly is over now, thanks to the courage of one woman.” He held out his hand and gestured to Elizabeth. She joined him and he put his arm around her. Glances were exchanged, she could see, and she suffered an awful case of nerves as she realized what was about to be announced.
“It was not just me,” she said, her voice ringing out, defying her nervousness. “Everyone here had a part in solving this terrible situation, and you should all have pride in your strength. And in your uncle and brother, who has been the might that has held you all together over the years.”
His gaze was full of love; if anyone had been in doubt, she knew that his expression was revelatory, for love beamed from him, radiating in warm waves. She was already carrying their child; he had told her it was so, and she believed him utterly. She laid one hand over her flat belly.