He wanted his cock deep inside her pussy, and he wanted it now.
Fortunately, she agreed to his suggestion to quit wasting time with a tentative nod.
He smiled and prayed she didn’t think she was prey. He glanced around before lowering his voice. “What are you?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
She shook her head. “You first. You’re a wolf.”
“Give the lady a prize. Now answer my question.”
She glanced down at the table. He got the impression she was not a woman used to feeling outnumbered or overpowered. “Do you know who Baba Yaga is?”
He snorted. “Let me guess, you’re her?”
She shook her head again. “Her younger sister.”
That stopped him in his tracks. He’d always assumed Baba Yaga was a myth.
Then again, so were shape-shifters.
“Her younger sister?”
“You might know me as Cailleach.”
Now that name he knew. His Scottish grandmother had scared him by invoking her plenty of times in his youth, a good hundred and fifty or so years earlier. When he’d wish for warmer weather, she’d say, “Daniel, ye ken better than that. Don’t make the Cailleach angry by wishin’ her away too soon, now. Ye hear me, laddie?”
“But…” He looked at her, dumbfounded. “What?”
Now she smiled. “Yes, I’m Cailleach. Or the Cailleach. Callie’s fine.”
“But you’re human.”
Before his eyes, her hair changed to ginger. “So are you. Just consider me a different kind of shifter.”
He sat back, appraising her with a new eye. “I have to be honest with you—”
“Yes, you do.” She smiled.
“As I was saying, I think you’re my One.”
“You think, or you know?”
“I know.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. He could smell how wet she was, how much she wanted him. Her cool-as-winter act wasn’t fooling his lupine nose in the least. “I’m going to take you home, fuck your brains out, and mark you.”
He watched the beautiful muscles in her neck work as she swallowed hard. Good. Her composure was on shaky ground.
He suspected that was the only advantage he had over her.
“What exactly do you think you’re going to turn me into?” she asked.
“What you know you are. What you already feel. I’m going to make you my mate.”
“I belong to no man.”
“I’m not a man. I’m a wolf.”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t argue with that logic. And she also couldn’t argue with the fact that, if it wouldn’t get them thrown in jail and irrevocably emotionally scar some of the children and adults in the dining room, she’d fuck him right there on the table without a second thought.
Wasn’t the kinkiest thing she’d ever done in her existence, but it would rank somewhere in the top fifty.
“True. But I’m not your average woman.”
“I never said anything about you was average,” he quietly shot back.
Callie suspected the verbal Ping-Pong match would have continued had the waitress not returned to take their drink orders. Alone again, Callie once more leaned in close. “If you think I’m just going to go home with you and submit to you and be a good little wifey, think again.”
He matched her tone and posture. “If you think I’m going to let you walk out of my life without a fight, you’d better think again.”
She sat back, her throat dry. She took the opportunity of the waitress returning with their drinks to slip out of the booth and practically sprint to the bathroom. Fortunately alone, she locked herself in a stall and turned, closing her eyes.
She opened them in Babs’ kitchen. Babs sat at her counter, in her maiden form, a vintage Vogue magazine from 1968 before her.
“What the fuck is going on, sis?”
Baba Yaga didn’t look up from her magazine. In fact, she flipped the page. “You’ve just gained yourself a wolf for a mate.”
“Argh! I don’t want a ‘mate.’ A fuck, a fuck buddy, hell, a friend with bennies, sure thing. A one-night stand, no problem. I don’t want, or need, a ‘mate.’”
That’s when Baba Yaga looked up, her eyes burning. “You said you’d help.”
“Yes, I did! Brighde and I both helped you with the ritual. But this—”
“This is helping. He and his kind are needed. You are an important part of the prophecies. Without you, evil will reign.”
Callie let out another scream of frustration and irritation. “What if I don’t fucking care?”
“But you do care.”
“You made me fall in love with this guy—”
“No.” Baba Yaga shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t do that. That was Fate. He is as much your mate as you are his. Your perfect match. There is one small issue, however.”
“‘One small issue’?” She looked incredulously at her older sister. “Only one? Because falling in love with this dude was not on my life plan for today!”
Babs smiled. “When you mate with him, you must submit to him. Willingly. He cannot and will not take you otherwise. It is their way. And if you don’t have him, you will spend the rest of your life miserable, as will he. Not to mention—”
“I know, I know! The whole end of the world, blah, blah, blah, problem.” She heavily sat on one of the barstools. “What is it about him?”
Baba Yaga shrugged. “It’s love. What can I say? It makes us all crazy.” Her older sister’s face clouded with deep pain. “If it’s any consolation, if you mate with him, you are fated to be with him longer than even I can see.”
Unless she slipped out through the kitchen, there wasn’t a back door to the restaurant. Daniel sat there, considering if he should follow her or not. When he glanced out the front windows, he could see her car still sat in the parking lot.
So she hadn’t run…yet.
The thought of giving chase to her set his blood boiling in a good way and made his already throbbing cock so hard it almost hurt.
Although he suspected if she truly wanted to disappear, she probably could.
He tried not to glance at his phone every thirty seconds to check the time. He could still smell her scent in the other side of the booth. He knew he wouldn’t be able to force her to become his mate—she could probably kill him where he sat if she wanted to—but he could tell from her scent she wanted him, even though he could also sense she was as shocked by that revelation as he was.
Time to burn my little black book. He’d never had a relationship last more than a few months, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to go a couple of years without a girlfriend. He had his work, pack obligations, and…
Well, work. In his younger days he’d been a wild pup, running crazy with some of his friends. Partying hard, playing harder. He finally realized finding a woman who could keep up with his sexual appetites wasn’t in the stars, which made every encounter he had even more emotionally empty than the last. He had a lot more fun going out to dinner and sitting there, talking for the whole night than he did from most of his sexual encounters lately. He was lonely.
He could not care less about sex. If he wanted to get off, he could always rub one out. What he truly wanted was a mate.
He fought the urge to drum his fingers on the table. After seven minutes and twenty-four seconds, Callie returned from the bathroom, a morose look on her face.