The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (68 page)

The black wolf stumbled as it moved toward the door. Its tail held low, ears flat against its head, its posture radiated defeat. The mighty wolf accepting defeat from a
man
. Lia found it all too amazing to believe.

And then the man who had bested a wolf stood and turned to her.

“White wolf,” he said, his voice gentle. He held out a hand toward her but kept his distance. “My lovely, lovely mate. You saved my life.” He went down on one knee. “You forever own my heart. Come back to me as a woman so I can hold you.”

A piece of her remembered the unbearable ripping pain transformation had brought. No! She would not go through that again. She growled. If he came near her, she would attack.

“Don’t be afraid.” He braved a step toward her. Foolish man. If he came any closer, she would kill him. But he didn’t seem to have any sense at all. He moved closer and closer until he laid his hand on her head. “It won’t be like before. Your wolf was ripped from you, which is the worst kind of violation. Come to me.”

But the pain
…

His touch on her head was warm, familiar. Welcome. Yes, yes, she wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted to touch him and kiss him, and Heaven help her, make love to him again…as a human.

Suddenly, she
was
in his arms. Her long, awkward arms. She reached around his strong chest, wiggled her fingers, and laughed.

His lips captured hers, and like a pair of playful cubs, they tumbled onto the bed.

Chapter Six

The next morning, Dimitri played lady’s maid and helped Lia dress. Her body was stiff from a full night of lovemaking. It was a good sort of stiff. Last night felt like a dream, a strange, hazy dream. One she didn’t quite understand. But she didn’t want to think about
that
. And she wasn’t ready to think about what last night would mean to the rest of her life. She didn’t want to think at all. She simply enjoyed the intimate moment of right now. She smiled as she stole a look over her shoulder at her lover while he struggled with her corset.

“These are a hell of a lot easier to get undone,” he grumbled.

She blushed. “You were saying that you visited Lettie already this morning? What did she say? Is she well?”

“As well as expected. Her face is bruised and scraped from my sister’s attack. But she is…er…relieved to know she will soon see you.”

An hour later, the pack gathered in the upstairs parlor. Vlad, Dimitiri noticed, stayed as far away from him as the room allowed. The rest of the wolves read their posturing and instinctively understood the mantle of power had shifted. When Lia’s aunt was brought in, the others carefully watched Dimitri to see how he’d act toward the human. Once he handed her a cup of tea, Misha rushed forward with a plate of pastries.

But the older woman had no interest in the tea or the breakfast fare. She placed the cup on a side table, bustled over to Lia, and hugged her tightly. “My poor, poor dear. I cried all night with worry for you. Did he hurt you?”

Lia flushed a deep red, which seemed to be answer enough for the older woman. She turned to glare at Dimitri with such force that he was struck with a sudden urge to run. Now that he was the alpha, he couldn’t run, or cower, even if it meant doing so would protect his own hide. As alpha, he would always have to show his power. It was a change that was going to take some time for this lone wolf to get used to.

“You will marry her,” the older woman said. At least she hadn’t struck him with her silver-handled cane.

“Naturally,” he said with a bow.

Her gaze narrowed. “But I will make sure the earl does not provide you with even a farthing of her dowry.”

“I have no need of his money or hers.” He gave Lia a wicked smile that caused her blush to deepen further. “My only need was
her
.”

“Well!”

“He may be outrageous, Aunt Lettie, and a bit unconventional,” Lia said with a rush. “But he has a kind heart.” She took her aunt’s hands in her own. “He did not hurt me.”

“Then he seduced—”

“What about the earl?” Vlad interrupted. “He stole
her
from us in the first place. Our plan cannot change. He must be punished for what he’s done. He must be killed.”

“My father?” Lia entreated of Dimitri. “You want to hurt my father?”

“He isn’t your father,” Misha said with a snarl before Dimitri could think of a gentle way to explain the truth. “You are like us. You belong to us.”

“She belongs w
ith
us,” Dimitri corrected. “Your parents—your
real
parents—led our pack for many peaceful years. They were respected and loved by all who knew them. They were the backbone of our kind.”

“Our kind?” Lia asked, shaking her head with confusion.

Dimitri winced. Despite having experienced her true wolf form last night, she clearly still hadn’t accepted the truth.

“You, my cub, are like us. You’re a wolf,” he said quietly.

“No.” She shook her head more violently and stumbled into her aunt’s embrace. “No.”

“Then how do you explain last night?” he asked.

Tears filled her eyes as she continued to shake her head in denial.

“You are my mate and a wolf. We are the same.”

Aunt Lettie gasped. She tightened her grip on Lia. “He’s a madman.” She glanced around at the ragtag group that had joined him in the room. “They’re all mad. We can’t stay here.”

Lettie led Lia toward the door. Dimitri lifted a hand to warn the others not to stop her. If Lia needed to run away, if she needed time to accept what she was, he was willing to give that to her. It was the least he could do.

“But what about my parents?” Lia asked. She pulled away from her aunt’s embrace but remained quite an uncomfortable distance from Dimitri. “My father is the Earl of Hawthorn. My mother is the Countess of Hawthorn. You wish to harm them? Why?”

“That bastard isn’t your father,” Misha said before Dimitri could answer Lia. His sister nearly spat the words. “Aren’t you listening? The great Lev sired you. Sasha gave birth to you. They were both wolves. How can you believe otherwise?”

Lia’s hands trembled and the color drained from her cheeks. She stumbled back toward the door as if Misha had struck her. “Aunt Lettie? Is this true? I’m not my parents’ daughter?”

“Of course you are their child.”

“Don’t lie to her!” Misha shouted. “She does not belong to them! She never has!”

“L-Lettie?” Lia’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, how I’d prayed this day would never come, my child.” Lettie pulled her niece into a tight embrace. “You’re the child of their heart. Never doubt that. Their love for you has always been real.”

“But I’m not their natural-born daughter?”

Her aunt nodded. “I’m only one in a very small number who know the truth. It happened while your father was serving the Foreign Office, acting as envoy to the royal family in Russia. They’d discovered your mother could not bear children. So they adopted you.”

“Stole you,” Vlad said, much to Dimitri’s chagrin. But, hell, it
was
the truth. “Ripped you from your dying mother’s arms. But now we have you back. Once more you belong to us.”

“
With
us,” Dimitri corrected.

With them?
This was all too much for Lia to take. As she shook her head, she soaked in the sight of the gaunt, unkempt men and women surrounding her. Their eyes were hollow with hunger. Why would anyone in such a position want to add to their numbers?

“I don’t know who your true parents were. I was told they had died,” Aunt Lettie said quietly.

“They were murdered,” Misha growled, “by your
parents’
hands.”

“No, I cannot believe that,” Lia said, regaining some of her color. “I will not believe that.”

“They are
hunters
,” another said as if being a hunter was an abomination. She supposed to them, to a wolf, it would be. “We have rescued you from them. And you will save us from being starved to death by the hunters, as it has been foretold.”

“Rescued me?” She clutched her throat and fought the urge to laugh...or cry. “I have spent the night in a gentleman’s bed who is not my husband. You did not rescue me. You have ruined me.” Hot tears spilled down her cheeks as the reality of last night began to take hold. “Do you think I can help you when you have stripped me of all I have, all I am? Because of last night, no one will look at me. My parents, such as they are, will no doubt cross the street rather than be seen with me.”

“No, Lia,” Aunt Lettie protested. “They wouldn’t. They—”

Lia refused to listen. She flung her hands in the air. “I’ll starve in the gutter alongside you, and no one will notice. You have doomed me to your fate, not elevated yourself to mine. Why can’t you see that? How can you be so blind? How can you sit there and think I would even want to help you? You…you…you don’t understand what-what you ha—”

Warm hands enveloped her, pulled her close to a scent she knew and trusted. Her entire body quaked with the shock of having her world pulled out from beneath her feet. She sobbed into his chest, ruining his finely cut coat with her tears. And still, he kept holding her.

“She is correct. It is time we start using our minds instead of acting solely on instinct,” Dimitri said. “Our future may not be what we expected or even what we want it to be. We may have to change our ways and rethink what Misha’s vision was really telling us. We may all have to take our places in the human world. And the first change that will take place will be a very human and very proper marriage between me and my mate.”

He rubbed Lia’s back, soothing her.

There was a light scratch at the parlor door. The room fell silent as an elderly butler shuffled into the room. With a loud voice that suggested he was more than half deaf, he announced the arrival of the Earl and Countess of Hawthorn.

“They have arrived sooner than I’d expected,” Dimitri murmured. “They must have traveled at top speed all night.”

Lia pulled back with surprise as her parents entered this den of angry wolves. “You used me to get to them?” she asked the room, distancing herself from Dimitri. “This was the plan all along, wasn’t it?”

“Things have changed,” Dimitri said but didn’t get the chance to elaborate. The earl took one look at his daughter’s tearstained cheeks and Aunt Lettie’s bruised and scraped face and slammed his fist into Dimitri’s jaw.

Dimitri dropped like a brick.

* * * *

“If they truly have nowhere else to go, why can’t they live on our estate?” Dimitri heard a cultured feminine voice ask as he slowly regained consciousness. He must have been out for quite some time. Someone had moved him to the settee and put a damp cloth over his aching forehead. The earl had one bruising chop.

He half opened one eye, surveying the situation before letting anyone know he was awake.

“Papa,” Lia said. She had clearly taken command of the room. The wolves were watching her with rapt attention as she made a grand gesture with her slender hand. “I must know. Did you kill my parents?”

The earl blanched and then sank down in the nearest chair. “When we were living in Russia, I was invited on a hunting expedition.” The others in the room growled. A few moved aggressively toward him. The earl held up his hands. “The hunters had told me we’d be tracking wolves that had been terrorizing a nearby village. For a week, we tracked a pair of them. We were getting close. We could tell by the fresh tracks. One morning, the leader of the hunters went out to scout the area with three others. We heard the shots. When we came running, we saw that they’d killed a pair of wolves. But the baby that was with them—
you
—still lived. They wanted to shoot you, kill you. But you were human, not a wolf. And they still wanted to kill you. I turned my blunderbuss on them and scooped you from the damp grass. From that moment on, you were
my
child.”

Although tears sparkled in Lia’s eyes, her expression remained impassive. “Those wolves that were killed that day, they were my parents?”

Dimitri felt a surge of pride at her courage. Perhaps Misha’s vision had been the truth after all. Perhaps Lia would bring back their pack’s strength. Her presence in his life had already made him a better wolf.

“You knew all along what I was?” Lia asked, her voice surprisingly steady.

Lia’s mother pressed her hands to her lips. The muscles in her father’s jaw tightened.

“You are my daughter,” he said with fire in his eyes. “Regardless of your birth, you are the child of our hearts. You must believe that.”

Lia nodded. But at the same time, her slender hands tightened into a pair of tight fists. Her gaze narrowed as she drew in a slow, deep breath. “But you knew when you took me that I was more wolf than human?”

“We suspected that it was the case,” he admitted. “The villagers had told many tales about the wolf people that lived in the surrounding forest. And though there are many, many tales of children raised by wolves, logic told me that no ordinary wolf could keep a baby alive. Those lost children so often touted in legends, I suspect, are in truth the offspring of creatures who are a mixture of wolf and human...like your true parents.” He glanced at Dimitri. “And like him as well?”

Dimitri pushed the damp cloth aside and gingerly rose from the settee. He flashed Lia a blazing smile and paid for it with a sharp pain in his jaw. Though he might not have wanted to be the alpha of this motley pack, she clearly was born to be a leader.

“Yes, I am wolf,” Dimitri said. He gestured toward his pack gathered behind him. “We all are.”

“This is insanity.” Lettie stamped her foot. “I cannot believe you are even listening to this man’s twaddle. Can’t you see how this charlatan is spinning a yarn in hopes of stealing Lia away from us? You can’t let that happen. You simply cannot!”

The earl sighed deeply. His shoulders drooped in defeat. “She was never truly ours to keep, Lettie,” he said.

Dimitri’s heart went out to the earl and his wife who had started to quietly weep. The man Dimitri long considered an enemy was nothing like he’d imagined. He wasn’t anything like the blood-hungry hunters in the Russian countryside. This man, though wary of the wolves crowding the parlor, truly cared for Lia and wanted what was best for her. What Lia wanted or needed weren’t ideas that Vlad
or Dimitri
had even considered.