Dangerously Red (A Dark and Dirty Tale) (2 page)

But we can’t be together.

Being with Reaper isn’t even a remote possibility, and I’d do well to remember it. A relationship with him is a dead end. Even if the Omega hadn’t shed light on the grim reality of my choice—how my only real option is Lukas—Reaper has made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want me. As long as his parents’ murderer is on the loose, life at his side is too dangerous. Even if I were to welcome the risk, he won’t allow me to paint a target on my back. He told me so.

Despair settles over my shoulders like a wet cloak as I think about choosing Lukas and letting Reaper go.

“The Omega warned me that you had a decision to make—that you were wavering,” Lukas says, jarring me back to our conversation, to him. “Until that moment, I didn’t know there was another.” He pushes off the doorjamb, snatches me around the waist, and tugs me against his chest. He’s hard as stone, and the coldness of his hands seeps through my cloak as he presses his palms against me. “But when I fucked you in my chamber, you said I was the only one.
All yours
, I believe were your exact words.”

“You’re right. That’s exactly what I said.”

“Then you’re a bold-faced liar.”

“But in that moment I
was
lost in you.” I suck in a clipped breath as he bends me against him. “Completely and wholly, I was yours. This may sound terrible, but I was saying good-bye to Reaper in your office. That’s all it was.”

Oh, it was so much more than that. It was heat and passion and something more, simmering just below the surface—something I was trying to grasp with both hands before it was ripped from me forever.

I can’t say the L-word because, come on, what kind of sap would I be if I truly believed that I’d fallen in love at first sight? But that’s sure as hell what it feels like.

Lukas’s lips curve with sinister distaste. “I hope that’s not your customary farewell.”

“No. It’s not.”

“Right answer.” He lowers his mouth over mine, breathes in deeply, and then sucks on my lower lip.

When he kissed me before, I was overwhelmed by the skill of his mouth and lost in heady sensation. I couldn’t help but press closer and beg for more. But nerves are jumbled inside me now, knotting in my stomach and piercing my sides with doubt.

“Did you come when he put his dick in you?” he says, nearly seething.

God, what can I say?
“I—I don’t think you want me to go into the details.”

“I’m going to ask you once more. This time, you won’t avoid my question.” His words are low and vicious, each one pronounced heavily. “Did you come when he put his dick in you?”

“Yes.” I swallow the rock that’s formed in the back of my throat. “But it wasn’t the same as when we were together. The whole experience was…
different
.”

“Wrong,” he says darkly, towering over me. “Do you really think those are the words I want to hear from my future mate? It was
different
?” He tsks his tongue against his teeth, and the sound reminds me of a snake about to strike. “You know, I thought I detected his scent when you were in my chamber earlier, but it was faint, barely there, lingering beneath the surface of your skin. I didn’t want to accuse you of being traitorous if you were innocent.” His lips curl into a snarl. “Little did I know you’re far from it, Ivy. You were playing us.”

“No, it’s not like that,” I plead, shaking my head. “That’s not what I intended. I simply let myself get carried away in
both
of you.”

It was the absolute truth.

With a jolt, he jerks the cloak down my shoulders. The ribbon tying it together breaks free, dangling over my bare breasts and tickling my sensitive skin. He crushes his mouth to mine mercilessly, plunging his tongue deep into my throat as he kneads my breasts in his rough hands.

“What is it about him, Ivy?” He tangles his fingers in my hair and gives the blond strands a stiff tug. “Is he that fucking irresistible that you spread your legs with a snap of his fingers?”

Yes.
“No.”

“Is he that much better than me?”

I lick my lip where it’s raw. “He’s nothing like you.”

Slippery response, but it’s the truth. They were completely different as lovers. Reaper was fire and explosive heat, burning me through, where Lukas unwound me slowly, lowering my defenses until I yearned for sweet release. He took me to the very edge, toyed with me there, and showed me how orgasms could be completely transcending.

But…that’s where it stopped with him.

It’s not the same as when I’m clutched tightly in Reaper’s embrace. When I’m with Reaper, I feel whole and complete, as if I’m meant to lie in his arms for the rest of my life. But when I’m with Lukas I feel as if he’s used me up and there’s nothing left. I’m almost…
empty
. Weakened and hollowed.

“Is that why you’re choosing me?” Lukas asks, his voice so dark it’s nearly a growl. “Because no one compares?”

As I stare up at him, confused about how to answer, the angry gleam burning in the depths of his eyes simmers down, shifting to insatiable hunger. I’m hovering in his arms, suspended, drifting against him, waiting for him to pummel my mouth with his. But when he leans down over me and stamps his lips to mine, the kiss is slow and burning, carving a hole in the center of my chest.

“It was an easy decision in the end, because you’re the Alpha.” I melt into the cage of his body, but when I meet his steely gaze, I know there’s more to be said. “I realized there was only ever once choice for me to make. You control everything.”

But Alpha or not, he’ll never control me.

“Right again.”

He fists a handful of my ass cheek, digging his fingers so deeply I squirm against him. This time, pleasure doesn’t piggyback on the pain. I’m going to bruise on my cheek, I know it.
He’s doing this purposefully,
I realize—marking me again to assert his supremacy and prove, once and for all, I’m his.

“I rule the castle and everyone in it,” he goes on, “and that includes you. You’re mine, Ivy. No one will be allowed to touch you from this day forward. Not anyone, no matter how innocently.”

Whoa, hold the phone.

I couldn’t have heard right. His words replay in my head.

No one will be allowed to touch you.

Nope, there’s no mistaking that.

Beyond my control, a stubborn flare rises inside me. Although I’ve been aroused by his commanding presence and swept away by his raw sexual prowess in the bedroom, dictating other aspects of my life is a different story.

“Not even a good-bye hug?” I ask, my voice trembling. I hate to ask, but it’s my future. My forever. I have to know what a life with him, the dominant and controlled Alpha, will entail. “What about a handshake or a friendly pat on the back? You can’t possibly mean those things, too.”

His eyes smolder coal black. “I mean all of those things. No one will ever touch you again. No one but me.”

Doubts tick through my head as slow and steady as a clock. A life with Lukas would be one where I wouldn’t want for anything. I’d rule Castle Arcana at his side, earn the respect of the packmates, and have more sex than I could probably ever imagine.

But not to be touched by anyone again?

The unwavering glare in his eyes warns that he’s dead serious.

“This is the reason I came to see you—the one thing
I
needed
you
to know before you declare my name in front of my pack.” His full lips harden into a line as he digs his large fingers into my shoulders. “Do you have a problem with what I demand of my mate and my wife?”

I shake my head slowly, warring with my instincts to escape from the pack and never look back. But I can’t go anywhere. It was my mother’s dying wish for me to join the Arcana Wolf Pack, and I’m in too deep. I can’t choose another. Not now. There is no telling what Lukas would do if I humiliated him that way.

Property of Lukas Black
might as well be stamped on my damn forehead.

“No,” I breathe. But I’m lying through my freaking teeth. “I don’t have a problem with that at all.”

“Good girl.” A slow smile pulls at the corners of Lukas’s mouth. “
My
girl.”

As Lukas turns and walks out of the chamber, closing the door quietly behind him, two words pound through my head. Two words that light up the darkness settling into my heart.

Not yet.

Until I declare his name in front of the pack, I don’t belong to anyone.

Chapter Two

Reaper

Ivy is not
mine.

The words scrape against my skull over and over again, but they don’t make sense. It feels as if I’m staring at a puzzle where the very last piece won’t fit into the slot. No matter how I try to force it or view it from a different angle, it’s not the right match.

When Ivy is in my arms, she belongs to me. When her taste lingers on my tongue, and her body bends into mine, there is nowhere else she’s designed to be.

If she wanted to bond with another dumb-ass pre-shifter, I might’ve been able to handle it better. I would still think about her each day while I’m hunting down my parents’ killer in Europe, but I would move on eventually. Now, her impending decision is a big-ass thorn in my side.

She’s going to bond with Lukas.

And he’s hiding something. He isn’t being up-and-up about pack business.

Before Ivy barged into the office to say good-bye—the best fucking farewell I’ve ever received—I found a spreadsheet in Lukas’s computer detailing transfers of money from the Arcana Wolf Pack to other unknown accounts. I haven’t had a chance to inform the Omega and ask whether they were sanctioned transfers or not, but a dark stirring in my gut warns Lukas is the one trying to impersonate her in business dealings.

It’s the reason I was called back to the castle in the first place.

And I’m close to unraveling everything. I know it. I feel the truth rattling my bones.

As I knock on Ivy’s chamber door, I’m still not certain whether I’m going to vocalize my doubts about Lukas’s integrity or bite my tongue, wish her well, and move on. There are only fifteen minutes left before she’s going to stand in front of the pack and finally declare Lukas as her mate. But if he is truly the one she wants, why’d she come for me in his office?

“Who is it?” she calls out.

I swallow hard and lower my gaze to my boots. I shouldn’t be here. I should leave. Focus on discovering which of my packmates is the deceitful bastard I’m searching for. Walk away. Let her figure this out for herself.

But when the door opens, I can’t move.

Standing in the doorway, Ivy tilts her head to the side and stares me down with that adorable questioning gaze of hers. Her cheeks are flushed pink, her lips plump and tempting. Before, I’d had the thought that Ivy was an angel, but now I know for certain. Her features are soft and feminine—narrow chin, high cheekbones, honey-blonde hair and soft doe eyes—and her scent is intoxicatingly sweet.

“Reaper,” she says on a sigh as she folds her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again.”

Something in my chest stirs at the relief in her tone.

She wanted me to come for her.

“Can I come in for a second?”
So I won’t be spotted in front of your chamber door.
“Please?”

She moves aside quickly to allow me to pass, and as I walk by, the scent of her arousal invades my senses. The space is cloaked in shadow, without flames in the hearth to shed light and warmth, but her natural aroma heats me through, setting fire to my skin.

“This probably isn’t a good idea.” She shuts the door behind me. The soft click of a lock sliding into place hits my ears, jarring me out of my fantasy. “I have to be in the Main Hall in fifteen minutes, and I still have to clean up.”

Breathing in deeply, catching hints of her arousal on the damp air, I brush her elbow as she tries to escape to the bathroom. She stops at my touch, eyeing me with a mixture of adoration and concern.

“You’re gorgeous, Ivy. Have I told you that enough?” I brush my fingers through her hair and trail my hand down her arm. I shouldn’t be touching her, but this might be the last time I’m able to feel the softness of her skin. I will some piece of her to imprint on me, so that when she’s bonded to another, I’ll never forget what this kind of connection feels like. “I wanted to tell you in the garden, the first moment I met you. You descended on me like an angel, and I haven’t been the same since.”

As memories of our first encounter strike me, I go rock hard beneath my slacks. She was a stranger, yet felt more familiar to me than anyone had before. Our chemistry was explosive and undeniable, spearing through my body like a lightning rod.

If there is a thing as fated mates, Ivy is as close as it will get for me.

But the more I enjoy her fiery strength, wit, and mind-blowing body, the more I realize I have to put as much space between us as possible. My mother was killed because she was my father’s—the Alpha’s—mate. If I abandon my search for their murderer and return to the pack to be with Ivy,
I
become the Alpha. As the eldest grandson of the Omega, it’s my birthright.

But that would mean leaving a killer on the loose and putting Ivy in his sights.

I can’t—
won’t
—do that to her.

As if my hands have a mind of their own, they skate down the dip of her waist and settle on the curve of her hips. Curling my fingers around her, I draw her against me and repress a growl. “I had to see you one last time before you stand in front of the pack.”
And declare your mate.
“I had to tell you—”

“Reaper…” She shrinks away from my touch with a wince, as if I’ve physically hurt her. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s only making this more difficult.”

Frowning, I stare where my hands had gripped her hips. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s not rehash it. You know why we can’t do this.” She pulls away completely, leaving me cold. “I’m choosing Lukas. You’re not even supposed to be here. Do you know what the Omega would do to you—what
Lukas
would do to you—if either of them found out? If you’re lucky, the Omega would banish you from the pack, but I think Lukas would jump at the chance to kill you first.”

“I know, but that’s not what I meant. What’s wrong with your hip?”

She turns on her heel and strides toward the bathroom. “Nothing. I’m just sore.”

“From what?”

“I’m not sure.” The tension in her voice grates against my skull like a dull razor blade. “It’s probably stress. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

She’s being cold and aloof, trying to shut me out. But I
know
she feels the same stirring in her gut that I feel in mine. She can’t deny me or push me away, any more than I can her.

With my wolf senses tingling, I pad toward the bathroom slowly, quietly, and peek inside. She’s leaning over the sink, splashing water over her cheeks. But as she spins toward the towel rack to dry her face, the edge of her cloak falls aside, revealing a brief glimpse of her bare backside.

A bright red blemish catches my eye. It’s raised, with fucking finger marks curling across her cheek.

“Ivy,” I bite out. I can’t breathe and my heart won’t beat as I block the doorway. “What’d he do to you?”

“Nothing.” She’s lying—shifting her eyes and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. As if to keep busy, Ivy turns on the shower and takes her time testing the temperature. “I’m fine. Really. Reaper, you should leave before things get harder than they already are.”

I steal behind her and part her cloak. Recoiling, she tightens it against her, but I’ve already seen too much. Fury boils the blood in my veins as my temples throb.

“He marked you.” I can barely speak the words, and as she turns from me, a whiff of his scent hits me like a sledgehammer. “Fuck, Ivy. Is this really what you want? To be the battered Alpha’s wife?”

I refuse to believe this is the life and the man—if he could even call himself one—that Ivy would choose for her future.

“Reaper, it’s not about what I want. Not anymore.” She faces me, her light eyes burning with indecision, her narrow jaw clenching as if she can’t say the words biting at her lips. “But he didn’t strike me in anger. He just—he wanted to possess my body, let me know that he’s in charge, and took things a little too far.”

“Christ, Ivy.” As I scrub my hands through my hair, hatred steamrolls through me, nearly knocking me back from the force of it. “This is so fucked up. None of this should be happening. I shouldn’t be back in Castle Arcana, you shouldn’t have been chosen by Lukas, and we shouldn’t be in this fucking twisted triangle.”

Ivy’s skin is porcelain-smooth and unblemished and should remain that way for the rest of her life. She doesn’t deserve to be marked by
anyone,
let alone her mate.

Ivy is
mine.

As the thought strikes me, I realize I’ve only known her tonight—a few measly hours—yet somehow she’s burrowed into me, and I’m not the man I was before I met her. I’ve had one-night stands before and up and left without a second thought. But the notion of leaving Ivy with Lukas knots my stomach and warps my thoughts.

For the first time since I left Castle Arcana,
I want to stay.
I know I can’t—I’d never forgive myself for ditching the hunt—but that doesn’t lessen her hold over me.

“Ivy,” I say, eating up the distance between us in a single stride, “I can’t leave until I know you’re going to be all right.”

“Reaper, it’s not your job to—”

And then, before she can dismiss my concern as she’s done before, I sweep her into my arms, cutting off her words. A tiny squeal escapes her lips, but as soon as her body rests against my chest, she quiets. Stills. Wraps her arm around my neck and holds on tight. As her eyes lock on mine, I’m overcome with the need to protect her and care for her. It’s such a foreign emotion that I barely recognize it. But it’s there, simmering beneath the surface, scorching me through. She’s delicate and light, her weight barely registering. But her heat—
that
I feel with the force of a radioactive blast.

Setting her in the stone shower out of the water’s range, I hold her gaze as I strip the cloak from her body. She trembles, reflexively covering her breasts with her hands.

God help Lukas if he hurt her there, too.

“It’s going to be all right, Ivy, I swear it.” I kick off my boots before she changes her mind, and strip out of my clothes, flinging them behind me. “I’m going to take care of you.”

“If you were staying, I’d believe it,” she whispers, standing under the umbrella of warm spray. “But you’re making promises you can’t keep. You won’t be here to take care of me. Another ten minutes and I won’t be your concern anymore.”

Water sluices between her breasts and down her dangerous curves, wetting her body completely. I don’t even realize when my feet shuffle into the shower in front of her. Or when my palms fill with the luscious weight of her breasts. But when I step into the spray and press against her, our bodies slick and warm and her tits sliding against my chest, my body is no longer my own.

It belongs to her.

I’m breathing for Ivy’s pleasure, my heart beating her name. It’s as if I was born to satiate her every need. With her body pressing against mine, I want nothing more than to plunge inside her and satisfy my own hunger. I want it rough and hot, and I need to hear her scream my name like I want nothing else in the world. But right now, she needs me to soothe away the pain inflicted by someone who has no idea what her true value really is.

…

Ivy

As Reaper reaches behind me for the soap, I’m trapped between the stone shower wall and his strong, muscular frame. He smells like musk and spice and sandalwood, and as I breathe him in, I’m instantly at ease. His golden tan skin glistens with water. It streams over the bulging muscles of his chest and down to his abs, capturing my complete attention.

Why does forbidden fruit have to be so damn sweet?

And sinful.

Reaper is definitely both of those things tied up into one erotic package. One very
large
package, actually.

Moving slowly, as if he’s afraid to harm me, Reaper palms the soap and slides it over my breasts, down my stomach, and between my legs. The scent of the lather—floral and fresh—fills the shower, drowning out his masculine aroma. I widen for him as my breath hitches, and a wave of desire washes over me.

“Does this hurt?” he asks, gently stroking my right cheek where Lukas had gouged his fingers into my flesh a few moments before.

I close my eyes and shake my head. “No. Not anymore.”

How’d I get into this predicament? A few hours ago I didn’t have a single mate in mind. Now, two of the strongest werewolves in the pack are vying for my attention, nearly killing each other in order to become my mate. And they are as starkly different as night and day.

Reaper takes his time, slowly washing my sore cheeks with the soap first, and then with the gentle sweep of his hands. All the while he won’t meet my eyes. He’s concentrating, studying every tiny detail of my body as if he’s never going to see it again.

Because in all actuality, he’s probably not.

As his gaze lifts to mine, a breathy exhale leaves me. There’s adoration in his dark eyes. Tenderness and reverence. But there’s fire, too. Flames of desire that leave me shivering despite the warm spray on my back.

“I’m going to clean you up,” he says, kneeling in front of me to soap up my thighs, “from your head to your toes, your breasts to your pussy. I’m going to lather you up, stroke you inside and out, and when
his
scent no longer lingers on your skin, I’m going to brand you with mine.”

My body is slick and beginning to tremble, and, beyond my control, a whimper bubbles out of me. I plant my hands on either side of the shower to brace myself as a mischievous grin plays at the corners of his mouth.

I’m in so much trouble.

As he makes good on his word, washing and massaging every quivering inch of my skin, the scent of him—the spicy, masculine, addictive aroma—returns full force and shrouds me in a heavenly mist.

“Ivy,” he says finally, and I realize I’ve had my eyes closed the entire time. “Look at me.”

I do as he says, bringing my gaze to center. The bathroom is full of steam, the walls running with moisture. The pads of my fingers have wrinkled like prunes. He cups my chin in his hands and swipes his thumbs across my cheeks.

“I never expected to find you here,” he murmurs. “I was supposed to come back, do this thing for my grandmother, and head back out. But you’re dazzling, distracting, and make me question things I shouldn’t. If things were different, if you had more time, or I was further along in my search—”