To the Edge and Back [The Royal Wolves] (Siren Publishing Allure) (6 page)

“Son of a bitch.” He kicked at a can on the street, sending it skittering toward the gutter. Turning, he looked up at the building and shook his head. “Dumb, dumb, dumb,” he muttered, heading back inside.

Reaching her door a few moments later, he knocked. “Mina, it’s me,” he said loud enough she’d hear but not the other tenants. Stepping back so she wouldn’t feel threatened or throw something at him, he waited patiently. He still hadn’t figured out what he was going to say or do, but he knew she had the right to know…everything.

She opened the door once more after placing the bat back down again. “Come in, Mr. Farkas.” She stepped back from the door, and when she looked into her too small apartment, she stepped back. “I would like to know why there were Wolves in my building, and I’m sure you will tell me why one sniffed me today?”

Stopping with his hand on the door, Janos looked to her. “One sniffed you?” he asked, pushing the door shut and throwing a lock before he moved toward her.

“Where were you when it happened and how many were there?” he asked, quickly following with, “Can you describe them, and did they say anything?” This could be even worse than he was making it in his mind depending on what happened.

“I was on the bus. I was on the way to the Laundromat, and one of them dressed in leather and pack colors leaned in and sniffed me. I think they were going to rob me, but he pulled back and said something like, ‘What the fuck?’” She winced at that word. “‘No, the boss needs to know that the youngest dickling prince has found a mate.’” She shrugged. “That was the last of what he said.”

Janos straightened up and frowned. “He actually said ‘dickling’?” he asked. At her nod, he growled. “I’ll kill the bastard just for that.” The word was an offence to the Wolves. Dickling was a slang word that implied a small and flaccid cock. Pacing away, he pushed his hands through his hair before turning to face her once more. “You may want to sit down for this. I have a feeling you may fall down before I’m done.”

She had a feeling that whatever he was about to tell her was something that she wasn’t quite ready for. Moving to the sofa, she sat. “All right, I’m sitting, and I think that I’m ready for whatever you have to tell me, I think.” She licked her lips as she pulled the throw pillow before her and shook her head. “I seriously think that whatever this is is going to change everything, isn’t it?”

Looking at her, he nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he murmured softly before moving to sit in a chair across from her. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hands together. “Okay, some of this is going to sound a little strange, but bear with me since I’ve never told anyone any of this, so I may be a little bit all over the map and erratic,” he requested, glancing up.

She could only nod as she watched him. He was beautiful, but the barely leashed animal inside of him was oddly endearing, so she wanted to listen to him, needed to.

At her nod, he dropped his gaze to his hands and decided to just start at the very beginning. “I was born in Hungary in 1814,” he said softly. “My parents were the Royals of the Wolf people.” He shot her a quick look before letting his gaze fall again. “Those guys on the bus were right, I am a prince, but I have never truly held that position since my parents and the rest of our family were all killed.”

She wanted to reach out and touch him. She felt his pain radiating off of him and it hurt her to see him hurting. She finally did reach out, her fingertips lightly touching his knee, but otherwise remained silent, just listening.

Rubbing his palms together again, he shifted. “In the late fall of 1818 the Palace was attacked during the night before my parents’ anniversary celebration. The rebels timed it perfectly since all our relatives were there to attend and celebrate with them. All our cousins, aunts, uncles, and everyone else were there,” he murmured softly. “They were all attacked before anyone knew what was going on. My brothers and I got lucky and a maid sneaked us out through the hidden tunnels that were built into the place for the Royal family’s security.”

Shifting, he got to his feet and began to pace. “Laszlo, my oldest brother, snuck us away from her in the night with money she’d managed to retrieve from one of the many stashes my father had in the Palace. We went to England and, for about ten years, lived with a distant, distant cousin that had no claim on the Crown. After that time we moved to the States and took up residence in New York. Since then we’ve lived here. We’ve never let it be known we’re here. We haven’t hidden, but we haven’t put it out that we’re of the Royal line.”

Stopping by the window, he stared out into the night and sighed. “I’m the youngest son. I’ll never have a claim on the Crown and I never wanted one. Laszlo was being groomed for the position as crown prince and, once he wed, king, upon my father abdicating the throne to him. He is the man for that position and not a one of us has ever wanted to take it from him. Should he decide to bring the Wolf back under Royal rule, he’ll do it with us at his side, but he’ll be the one to lead.”

Smiling faintly, he turned to glance at her before shrugging. “As to the rest of it…” Now he was nervous again. “He was right on another matter, I think, especially if he scented me on you,” he said, moving to sit across from her again.

“A Wolf finds his mate usually in a chance meeting, the barest of glances, perhaps a brief encounter, but the thing that lets us know for sure are the dreams. We dream of our mate, usually sexual, but with enough time we can control them to some degree and learn about our other half. I’m guessing from your expression that you know what I’m talking about,” he guessed softly as he watched the emotions chase over her face.

Mina swallowed hard and leaned back heavily against the worn but clean couch. “So that wasn’t just me imagining things?” She whispered, “But you don’t like me, I mean at all. You hate humans, and face it, Mr. Farkas, that is what I am.” She felt weird calling him Mr. anything, but he hadn’t asked her to call him Janos, and now even more than before she had to ensure she didn’t break protocol. He was a prince, for the love of god.

Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. “I don’t hate humans,” he said again. “I work with a lot of humans. I even have several I consider friends. I made a comment about Max in particular because he was being an ass,” Janos told her softly. Then his mind latched onto her words and he narrowed his eyes slightly. “So you have been having dreams?” he asked carefully.

“Yes, I have been having wildly wicked dreams about you, and I thought I smelled you on my skin when I woke earlier, but it has all been in my imagination. I’m no one. I’m a poor working woman who lives paycheck to paycheck.” Well, sometimes she was lucky enough to stretch it that far. “I am a human, no one good enough for a prince, so I think that this has to be wrong.”

“Fate doesn’t care what your life is, Mina, it’s who you are inside,” he told her, quietly shifting so he could take her hand in his carefully. “You weren’t imagining it. My scent is on you, permeating your skin enough that other Wolves know who you are. You are my mate, and for the record, I’m not a prince any longer except by birth. The Royal line has been practically destroyed and the Throne no longer rules. We’re symbolic now, nothing more.”

Stroking her fingers lightly, he watched her carefully. “And you may be human, but that’s not all you are. You are unique and strong and special, Mina. And, for the love of god, can you stop calling me Mr. Farkas? I keep looking around for Laszlo each time you do. My name is Janos, and you more than any other has the right to call me by that.”

Mina looked up with wide eyes and swallowed hard. “Janos.” She loved his name. She loved the way that it sounded and how it felt coming out of her mouth. “All right, please tell me the truth?”

How in the world did she ask what she was thinking? “First of all…” She would put it in a two part or something. “How does this affect me? I smell like you, and the other Wolves know that I am your mate. What does that mean for me?” she asked and then continued before he could speak. “And what if something happens to me, what will happen to you?” Her mind was clicking through things. “What happens with you when you don’t want to take me as your mate?”

“Because you smell like me they can freely attack you because I haven’t marked you as mine or claimed you yet,” he said quietly. She deserved the truth and it was the least he could do. “If anything happens to you I will likely never have another mate and, eventually, madness will take me down or, when I go mad, the Packs that want the Royals dead will gladly do it for me.”

Squeezing her fingers lightly, he stroked his thumb over her knuckles gently and leaned in with a faint smile. “Who said I didn’t want to take you as my mate?” he asked her in return, lifting a brow, curious to find out her answer to that one. “And if you give me that crock about you being human and my stupid comment that was in relation to Max, I swear I’ll paddle your rear end until you can’t sit for a year.”

She swallowed and licked her lips, a pain in her throat, but she shook past that and moved on into something else, something other. “Thank you first of all for being completely honest with me.” She squeezed the hand holding hers. “I don’t want you to go mad. I think I could like you.” She paused and smiled. “If you could not growl at me all the time.”

She sighed and shook her head as she came back to his question. “You just didn’t seem as if you wanted to even be anywhere close to me. Me myself”—her face flushed—“I was having issues being close to you because I was thinking that I was having these erotic dreams about you, and I barely know you beyond your name.”

“I don’t growl,” he said, but he knew with the deepness of his voice it often sounded like he did. “This is how I sound all the time,” he told her with a shrug. “Except for when I was younger, I really didn’t have any other tone of voice.”

“I don’t like to be hit, even in playfulness, so I think that would end things for me if you were to spank me, even in play or…” She couldn’t finish the statement, at all.

Up went a brow and he smiled slightly. “I was teasing, Mina,” he said gently. “I’d never hurt you and I’d kill any one that dared to do you any harm. Wolves are extremely predatory and protective especially with our mates,” he told her. She hadn’t said yes yet, which was making him nervous as well. “I know you likely have questions, so if you want to know anything now’s the time to ask, Mina.”

“What would happen? I mean when, if, when”
—
crud!
—“I say yes, what will happen?” She was so used to doing her own thing, to no longer have that available would be very hard on her. “I have always done for myself. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have an independent streak a mile wide.” She blushed as she looked at the pillow in her hands and snorted mentally. A mile wide, hell, her independent nature held its own planet. “So what happens to us, to me? How do you keep the others from killing me or thinking you’ve gotten weak?”

“If you say yes”—he didn’t latch onto her use of the word ‘when,’ it was too much to hope for—“then I would mark you as mine. After that, if you still were willing, you’d become my mate in every sense of the word.”

He watched her cheeks warm slightly, knowing she was remembering the dreams. “If you were willing, you could be changed, but I won’t lie to you, it’s hard on a human’s body. We’d have to fatten you up a bit and get you physically fit to withstand the change, mainly fattier foods than you’d normally eat as well as weight lifting to develop your muscle tone. After that you would be one of us and you’d be fully able to defend yourself with a little additional training so that you know how to best utilize your new body. You’d still be you, but more,” he said, knowing she might be worried about that.

She nodded and afforded him a slow smile. “I’m not saying ‘no,’ Janos.” She breathed quietly. “I’m not saying ‘no,’ so please don’t think that.” How could he “fatten” her up when she couldn’t even buy fattier foods than she had now? It was something she would just have to work out on her own. Maybe taking that second job at the cafe was a good idea. “I’m not saying ‘no,’ Janos, but I need time for the whole ‘in every sense of the word’ part of things.” Biting her lip, she suddenly found her hands very interesting. “I, uhm…” She twisted and wrung her hands together. “I haven’t done this before.” Whoa there, was that ever the truth.

Staring at her bowed head for a long moment, Janos stayed silent as he processed what she’d said. Then it hit him and he had no idea what to say. Somehow he knew if he jumped up and down shouting for joy that his mate was virgin it just wouldn’t go over well. Not sure how that idea came about, but he figured he would heed it. That was, of course, unless he was way off base, and maybe she was talking long-term relationships. But how the hell did a guy ask just what she was referring to without being bopped for being an idiot?

Clearing his throat slightly, he shifted and tried to see her face, but she wasn’t giving him anything to work with, her chin plastered to her chest. “Mina, I’m not going to rush you, but I thought you had the right to know everything. I know it sounds as though everything would happen immediately, but it won’t, I promise. At your pace, honey, if that’s what you want to do, we’ll only go as quickly or as slowly as you are comfortable with. I’ve been around a very long time, Mina. A few more days, weeks, months, or even years won’t kill me.”

Mina nodded and finally she looked up at him. “How would you mark me, Janos?” She wanted to know everything. He had said she could be changed to be like him, but she wasn’t ready for that little kernel of knowledge. Right now she wanted to know about the most pressing things. What would happen to him, how he would mark her, and—“And even if you mark me, it doesn’t keep me from being killed”—she swallowed the pain and fear in that word—“by someone later, so what happens now?” She found herself warming more to the idea of being, well, his.

“There are two ways to mark you. One is my scent and the other is with a bite. Not deep, not enough for the transition, but enough to prove to others that you’re taken. This will cause anyone attacking you to pause, usually enough for a swift kick to the groin, the heel of your hand to a nose, or even a good dousing of pepper spray. The last is particularly effective against Wolves because of our keener sense of smell. It will actually put a Wolf down for days,” Janos told her.