Niki nodded. Drake said, “Yes. Fine.”
“Niki,” Sylvan said, “I want you to find Sophia and bring her and Drake to the infirmary.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“I’m entrusting Drake to your care, Imperator.” Sylvan stroked Niki’s face and Niki brushed her lips over Sylvan’s palm.
“Yes, Alpha.”
“Drake, are you well enough to go with Niki?”
“Anything you need, Alpha.” Drake sat up and rubbed the bruise on her arm from Niki’s teeth. She hadn’t drawn blood.
Sylvan was suddenly at the edge of the clearing, calling, “Andrew!” Then she bounded into the forest, a streak of shining silver in the starlight.
Drake hadn’t moved but she felt as if she were running. The wind rushed over her body and the scent of the forest engulfed her. She caught glimpses of moonlight glinting through the leafy canopy and sensed another body running close to hers. She shivered and the sensations faded, but did not completely disappear. Agitated, Drake jumped to her feet and strode toward the dark woods. Sylvan was somewhere in the heart of the mountains with only Andrew to protect her. Drake wanted to shift and go after them, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know how. Couldn’t follow her instincts. Frustrated, angry, she stared into the dense wilderness, willing Sylvan to return.
“You’ve put the Alpha in danger. I’ll kill you before I’ll let you hurt her,” Niki said from behind her. “I should have killed you before you turned, but the Alpha wouldn’t let me.” Drake spun around. Niki stood naked in the moonlit clearing a few feet from Drake, a warrior sculpture carved of muscle and bone, primal and fierce. Her eyes glinted with shards of gold and her body shimmered against the dark silhouettes of the pines. Drake looked her in the eye. “I would never hurt her.”
“You will, if you call her to you again,” Niki said. “She is our Alpha. Even if the Pack accepted you as her mate, you are mutia. You can’t bear young. You would weaken her position in the eyes of the other Alphas. Even to some in our own Pack.”
“Her mate?” Drake said dully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She heard your call from miles away,” Niki snarled. “I could smell you on her this morning. I can smell her on you now. So will the others.”
“We just had sex,” Drake said. “Of course I smell like her.”
“No. Your scents are mingled. Your pheromones are blended with hers. That shouldn’t happen unless your kinins are chemically fusing.”
“But I haven’t done anything,” Drake said.
“You bit her, didn’t you?”
Drake’s body flamed with the taste of Sylvan. A rumble rolled through her chest and she felt a wave of possession so strong her canines protruded violently. “Yes.” She fought down the surging wolf that demanded she assert her right to Sylvan. She had to understand what was happening. “But Elena said Weres bite during sex. That biting was natural.”
“It is natural,” Niki said, “for a dominant to bring a beta Were to orgasm with a bite. But only a mated wolf or one wanting to mate will bite a dominant one. And no one bites the Alpha except her mate. Ever.”
“Sylvan forced me to shift,” Drake said, searching for an explanation. “I didn’t know. I…” She stopped, unwilling, incapable, of repudiating what she had experienced with Sylvan in that glorious moment of incredible transformation. Sylvan had been so beautiful—so tender and so powerful. Drake had needed her, wanted her, desired her. She had bitten Sylvan because she had wanted her completely, as deeply and passionately as she had ever wanted anyone. She would never let anything diminish that memory, especially if the memory was all she was ever to have. “But we’re not bonded, are we?”
“I don’t know,” Niki said. “I don’t think so, or Sylvan would not have left your side tonight, even for a few minutes. A newly mated pair are always inseparable, and the Alpha’s mate is usually very possessive about letting the Alpha run with the other wolves.”
“Even her centuri?”
“Even us,” Niki said. “The Alpha’s mate never completely trusts anyone to protect her.”
“Then we aren’t bonded yet, so she is still safe,” Drake said, fighting a wave of sadness that verged on despair.
“Possibly,” Niki said. “I hope so.”
“Are you saying if we do bond that you’ll kill me?” Drake wasn’t angry with Niki. In fact, she respected her, appreciated her unwavering desire to protect Sylvan.
“If I have to, yes.”
“And what will Sylvan do then?”
“She’ll execute me,” Niki said.
“But you would still kill me, even if it meant you would die? You love her that much?”
“She is our Alpha. I am her second.” For the first time Niki looked away. “I would do anything I had to do to protect her.”
“I won’t let her lose her mate and her second. That would destroy her,” Drake said.
“Then take another mate before it’s too late—and none of us are left with any choice.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jody slowed her car in front of the arching sixteen-foot-high wrought iron gates that spanned the driveway to her father’s estate. A massive stone wall enclosed the ten acres immediately surrounding the thirty-room mansion. Beyond that, another hundred acres of woods were patrolled by her father’s minions at night and by human guards during the day. She waited while the video cameras scanned her vehicle. The gates opened silently and she drove the half mile down the tree-lined driveway and parked in front of the stone staircase leading to the entrance.
Before she’d crossed the expansive patio to the front door, a willowy brunette, one of Zachary Gates’s human servants, opened it.
The brunette, her clinging floor-length claret gown slashed low between full flowing breasts, cocked a hip and smiled indolently.
“Hello, Jody.”
“Hello, Angela,” Jody said.
Angela slowly ran her tongue between her lips and slid her gaze down Jody’s body. “I’ve missed you.”
“That’s unexpected.” Jody stepped around Angela and started down the wide central hall. “Considering that you stopped dating me to sleep with my father.”
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Angela fell into step and linked her arm through Jody’s. “You know you weren’t interested in anything serious with me.”
“And you think he is?”
“He said he’d turn me.” Angela ran her mouth over the edge of Jody’s ear. “Unless you’ve changed your mind and are ready to blood-bond me. I’d love to be just yours forever.”
Jody whipped around and grasped Angela’s shoulders, giving her a shake. “This isn’t a game, Angela. Do you know why there are so few Vampires? Not many are born, and humans who try to turn usually die.”
“You’re always so serious.” Angela tapped her blood-red fingernails against Jody’s mouth. “Except when you’re fucking. Then you’re wild.”
With a curse, Jody let her go and vaulted up to the second-floor balcony. She didn’t stop to acknowledge the burly Vampire standing guard at her father’s door, but shoved him aside and burst through the heavy mahogany doors into the opulently appointed office. The high-ceilinged room was lit with hanging crystal lamps. Rich brocade tapestries adorned some walls, floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined others.
Marble pedestals in both far corners held priceless Chinese vases.
Thick Persian carpets covered the hardwood floors. Soaring windows opposite the doorway gave a breathtaking view of the mountains—a view her father would never again see in daylight.
Zachary Gates was on the phone, and when he saw her, he murmured a few words and hung up. He leaned back in his massive leather chair and straightened the cuffs on his black silk shirt. “That was an impressive entrance.”