Gone with the Wolf

chapter Thirteen


“You didn’t have to do this all for me,” Emelia said, staring at Drake from her stool across the granite island. “I could’ve eaten the pizza. It would’ve been fine.”

They’d made love three times since she woke from her transition slumber, and while her cheeks had flushed a delicious shade of pink, her skin was paler than it’d been before. Emelia needed to eat a good, solid meal to rejuvenate her system. He would be damned to serve her cold pizza.

“I told you it’s no problem.” Drake stirred the tomato sauce and turned down the boiling water on the back burner. “I like to cook.”

“You’re sure you didn’t come from a Good Husbands catalog or something?”

He gazed at her over his shoulder and watched wonder spark deep in her eyes. “They have such a thing?”

“No, I don’t think so.” She smiled, adjusting his T-shirt over her shoulders. “But if they did, I’m sure you’d grace the cover.”

Drake couldn’t ignore the pride whipping through him—instead of dressing in the clothes Raul had picked up from Emelia’s apartment, she’d chosen to slip back into his shirt. He dropped the spaghetti into the pot and focused on shoving them into the bubbling water so she wouldn’t see the glow emanating from within him.

“Why don’t you have a chef?” she asked.

“I tried that once,” he said, precisely measuring out garlic, pepper, and Italian seasoning, then dumping them into the sauce. “But the one I hired cooked new-age health food that had no flavor. He insisted I eat healthier to elongate my life. He was an idiot.”

The sauce began to bubble, so he clamped the lid down, poured a glass of wine, and handed it to Emelia. Would it always be this way if she became his Luminary and stayed by his side? They could make love all evening, steal down to the kitchen to cook up a midnight snack, then go back to bed and f*ck until morning. Drake had given up the thought of bonding with someone—he’d grown accustomed to living on his own. But if Emelia stayed with him he wouldn’t have to turn on the television over dinner to create noise so the house wouldn’t feel as vacant. He wouldn’t have to read in bed until he fell asleep so the night wouldn’t seem so cavernous. Emelia would be there every step of the way with her spunky wit, effortless beauty, and challenging mind. It could be good, Drake realized. It could be great.

“That brings up a good point,” she said. “How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?” Drake sipped on his own wine as he stirred the noodles.

“Thirty?”

“Not far off.” He shrugged. “I’m three hundred.”

Emelia choked. “Three hundred years old?”

“Give or take a few decades.”

“But wait, at the Vanguard Gala the host said Serephina was born in the late eighteen hundreds. I’m no Einstein when it comes to math, but I think there’s a missing century in there somewhere.”

Drake leaned over the counter, amazed at Emelia’s memory. “When we moved to San Francisco, my mother falsified her birth certificate so she could become more involved in the city council. If anybody dug around, they would find the truth.”

“I see.” Emelia sipped on her wine. “So at the ripe age of three hundred, are you an old or young wolf?”

“The average werewolf lives a thousand years. If they can find their life mate.”

“Oh.” Emelia’s breathing slowed—Drake could sense it, hear it. “And if they don’t find their mate?”

Drake went back to manning dinner. “A mateless werewolf will live maybe three-quarters of that, between six and eight hundred years. It’s not an exact science. Some werewolves are stronger and heartier, so they’ll naturally live longer than their weaker packmates. But my father believed that werewolves, like men, need women to balance and support them. He believed that men are weaker and incomplete without a woman at their side.”

Emelia’s arms suddenly slipped around Drake’s waist. “I think your father is brilliant.”

“He was brilliant,” Drake corrected, leaning into her. “My father passed away some time ago.”

Drake hadn’t heard Emelia approach, but he breathed deep as she laid her head against his back and wrapped her arms tightly around his middle. He’d left his shirt upstairs and had dressed in nothing but plaid pajama pants that hung low on his waist. As Emelia’s fingers slowly danced over his abs, teasing him with the promise of traipsing lower, Drake was glad he’d left his shirt upstairs.

Emelia went up on tiptoe and smudged a kiss on Drake’s shoulder, sending starbursts of shivers exploding down his spine. Fantasies of taking Emelia on the counter, the floor, the table, shot through his mind like comets.

“You’re going to burn the sauce,” she whispered.

“Damn it.” The sauce had splattered on the lid and seeped onto the burner, making a giant mess. Part of Drake wanted to leave the spill, let the spaghetti burn, so that he could ravish Emelia again and again. How was it possible that she had become a welcome distraction in every part of his life, in just a few short weeks? “Let’s eat.”

They ate on the table poised between the kitchen and living room. Drake couldn’t bear the royal-like formality of the dining room. Not with Emelia. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t…fit. He didn’t want ten empty chairs between them as they sat on opposite heads of the table. He wanted Emelia close. Beside him. Where he could rub her thigh beneath the table between bites if the urge struck him.

Through dinner, Emelia had a million questions about the transition and what to expect, and Drake answered every one honestly, with as much clarity as he could. And every time he had the impulse to rub her thigh, he did. Although Emelia smiled and seemed to tremble at his touch, her sapphire eyes remained guarded. Even as she pulled her hand away, she hesitated as if removing her hand from his went against her deepest wishes.

What was holding her back from getting close to him outside of the bedroom? Could she not feel how deep their connection had rooted?

“Some of what happened at the gala is still a blur,” Emelia said, finishing up the last of the spaghetti, “but I remember your brother saying something about ruling the pack.”

Lost in thought, Drake clinked his fork against his plate. “Why would he mention that to you?”

“I think he said something about using me to get all of it…the pack and the estate.”

“Shit.” Dropping his fork, Drake leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, as if he needed to brace himself against hurricane force gusts of wind. “He was going to hold you ransom for everything. Son of a bitch. He must’ve been the one to send that goon to attack you in the parking lot…I should never have underestimated him.”

Emelia blanched. “Your brother sent that guy?”

“Not guy, Emelia. Werewolf.”

“Shit is right.” She guzzled her glass of wine and poured another.

“I should’ve told you, but I wanted to ease you into my world. I didn’t even know if you’d want to be a part of it. Guess there’s no choice anymore.”

“Why me? I mean, why do I matter, anyway?” Emelia’s neck flushed red, showing the signs of a pre-transition temper flare. “Why does your brother care who I am or bother sending some guy to attack me? Until two months ago, I was just a bartender. I’m nobody in your world.”

“No, you’re more than that.” Drake took her hand and squeezed when she tried to pull away. Her skin was scorching hot. “There’s something I haven’t told you. Something I’ve been waiting to say until the right moment.”

“You know, I’m barely on board with the werewolf thing. I’m already prepared to invest in Nair to take care of the nasty hair problem I’ll have. Do you know how many hours it’d take to wax a wolf? I Googled it!” She nodded quickly, prompting him to answer, but left him no time to do so. “Like ten hours, Drake, ten! Now you’re springing another surprise on me? If you say I’m gonna sprout three heads or become the next Godzilla, I might have you kill me now.”

“You’re my Luminary,” he said, throat drying, heart drumming. “You’re the one I’m destined to be with, the one who makes my life whole and complete. You’re the one I’ve been waiting for my entire life. But the same thing that makes you my heart’s greatest blessing makes you Silas’s greatest threat. I guess I didn’t realize how bad he wanted to be Alpha until now.”

“Hold the phone.” Emelia licked her lips slowly, her gaze homing in on the hard angles of Drake’s face. “If you’re with me, you get control over the whole pack? Like a private army, all to yourself?”

“There is something specific that has to happen for us to complete the Luminary bond, but basically…yes.”

“Listen, Drake—”

“Wait,” he said. “There’s more.”

“I don’t think I can take much more.”

He sighed, though the breath did little to release the tension hardening his body to stone. “As the new Alpha, it’s expected that I have heirs to the throne, but a female turned werewolf has never survived giving birth when the father is an Alpha. Our young are too powerful, even in the womb. Only a pure-blooded born werewolf would be strong enough to live through the experience.”

Emelia looked sick, holding her stomach as if the words soured her dinner.

“Let me get this straight. You’re an Alpha, need heirs, and I’m your Luminary, the one who is supposed to give them to you, but since I wasn’t born a werewolf, I won’t survive the birth?”

“Right.” He nodded. “And neither will the children.”

“Holy mother, Drake! How can you expect me to be on board with all of this? I mean, last month I was fine. My life was fine. I mean, it sucked hard, but at least I could wrap my mind around what the hell was going on. This…all of this…it’s too much.”

Drake’s greatest fear unfolded before his eyes. He could sense Emelia shutting down and clamming up. He should’ve waited to tell her about the issues with having children. He should’ve saved the bomb for when her feelings weren’t so clouded by the mind-f*ck of transition.

He tried to analyze his own feelings instead, but they were a jumbled mess of duty and honor and a pinching in his heart that smarted a lot like love. If being with Emelia meant that he would never have children, never have an heir, he’d have to be satisfied with that, and deal with the ramifications of the pack when they crossed that bridge. It was the only thing he could do.

But his decision wasn’t the only one to consider.

If Emelia mated with another wolf, she could have children just fine. In essence, he was asking Emelia to choose between a future with him and a future with children. The thought made his gut clench into a solid rock. The only way he had a shot was if Emelia didn’t want children to begin with.

“A month ago,” he said softly, “when you looked into your future, did you see children?”

“I just thought of something else.” Her hand went soft in his. “I’m not just Silas’s ticket to everything, I’m yours. Is that why you’ve been being so nice to me lately? Because you want to use me to satisfy some power trip and become Alpha? Is that why you’ve been letting me drive your car, taking me out, and—ah shit, I let you take me to bed.”

“Do you really think I’ve been using you so that I could take control over my pack?”

“I know I had a vision of who you were before I met you. The person I envisioned would’ve stopped at nothing to claim what he believed to be his. Two weeks ago, it wouldn’t have surprised me to hear that you were going to use me to get ahead in some twisted family game.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. What Drake wouldn’t give to know what she was really thinking. “But now, I feel something different. I don’t think you’d do something like that, but…hell, I haven’t known you long enough to know how or why you do anything. This whole thing doesn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t…feel right.”

“Think about it logically,” Drake said. “If I wanted to use you against my brother, I would’ve bonded with you already and moved packmates around to different corners of Seattle. There would’ve been some commands ordered. There would’ve been massive pack movement the second I heard you were in danger.”

“That easy, huh? Screw the woman, conquer the world? You know, like the line from that show?”

“I think you mean something else, but given the circumstances, the logic makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Nothing about this makes sense, so you can’t expect me to rely on logic.” She took her last bite of pasta and pushed the bowl aside. “Sometimes you have to follow your gut and go with what you feel, and if you don’t know what your gut’s telling you, you wait until you do. Don’t you ever base a decision on feeling alone?”

As Drake thought back over every business deal he’d ever made, Emelia’s smile flickered like a half-watted lightbulb. Every move he’d made had been based on facts, including the decision to keep Emelia’s bar in his possession so he could invest in the area and ramp up business. He’d been right to keep the Knight Owl. When things settled down, she could run it. They would own it together. If profits didn’t climb, they’d sell it. Simple.

“You even measured out the seasoning in this sauce like every speck counted,” she said.

“It does count.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. “It all counts for something. Didn’t you enjoy the spaghetti?”

“It was downright grubtastic, but you probably could’ve thrown the ingredients into a pan and it would’ve come out tasting the same.”

He wasn’t even going to ask Emelia what grubtastic meant. He assumed it was good since she’d all but licked her plate clean.

“If I’d made the sauce any other way, the spaghetti would’ve come out tasting completely different. I made the spaghetti from a recipe that had been passed down from my grandmother. It has to be exact, down to the pinch. That’s what makes it great. That’s what makes it special.”

Leaning back, Emelia chewed over his words and eyed the leftover sauce on the plate.

“Everything in my life has to have order,” he said. “Everything has to make sense. If it doesn’t, how do I know it’ll turn out right?”

“You don’t, Drake,” she said, swiveling around, placing both her hands on his lap. “That’s the fun of it.”

“If you won’t listen to what I’m saying, and you won’t trust my words”—he reached out, brushing back the hair that fell at her temple—“then what do you feel in here?” He touched her chest and held his hand there, feeling her heart thump wildly against his hand. “Do you honestly feel like the only reason I’m with you now is because I want to dominate my father’s pack?”

“What you don’t understand is that I don’t know if I can trust what you’re saying, but I don’t think I can’t trust my heart either.” She looked at him then. Right through him. “It led me astray the last time I did.”

There was only one thing left for him to do. He had to prove his intentions.

“Then for now, stay with me. Let me protect you until Silas is found. He’ll continue to hunt you down until you make your final decision, but at least if you’re under the protection of my pack, he won’t be able to get to you as easily.”

“Wait—what final decision?”

“Just because I’ve found you doesn’t mean you’re automatically bound as my Luminary, Emelia. You have a choice in the matter, too. I want you to want to be with me for the next seven hundred years. I want you to be by my side because you want to honor and love me, not because our meeting was fated by the stars.”

“Drake, I—”

“Let me finish.” Drake grasped both of Emelia’s hands in his. Electric currents shot up his arms and rattled through his chest. “If you want to complete the Luminary bond with me, tell me now and we can get started building a future together, but that future won’t involve children. If that’s not what you want—if I’m not what you want—I give you my word that I’ll continue to protect you. I’ll ease you through the transition process, welcome you into my pack, and once Silas is gone and the threat to your safety is over, I’ll make sure you’re settled back in the routine of your normal life in the city. But I swear to you, here and now, no matter what you choose, I’ll never bond with another.”

Her perfectly arched brows rose as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “But you said your life would be shortened if you didn’t bond with someone.”

Drake couldn’t hold back, not now. Not when the pressure in his chest was this tight. “If I knew I was never going to see you again, I’d choose to die tonight, with the taste of you still on my tongue, the feel of your body still on my hands, and your scent lingering in my nose, than live another day without those things.”

Emelia threw back her chair and leaped into Drake’s lap. He caught her, coiling his arms around her back, and brought her closer as she nuzzled into his neck. He’d waited so long for this moment—since he was first taught about Luminaries and soul mates and the completion of two lonely hearts. He’d been waiting for Emelia his entire damn life. There was no way he could’ve fathomed how empty his life was until this moment, when his heart felt so full it was liable to burst.

“Is this a yes?” he asked, allowing a sliver of hope to streak through him. Maybe the children issue wasn’t an issue after all…

She planted fevered kisses on his neck, the underside of his jaw, his lips. Then Emelia laid her head against his chest and shook her head.

Confusion prickled the hairs on the back of Drake’s neck. “No, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said, wiggling around so that she straddled his lap. “No one has ever talked to me the way you do. No one has ever made me feel this way, but—”

“But?”

“You can’t expect me to make a decision this quickly. I mean, I love what’s happening between us. I’ve never felt anything like this before.” Her fingers danced across his chest in tiny swirls, chilling him with each gentle stroke. “I can barely keep my hands off you and I’d be stupid if I said I didn’t dream of some knight in shining armor sweeping me off my feet the way you have. But after what I’ve gone through—first with my ex, then with all…this—I don’t feel like it’d be a good move to jump into another relationship until I have my feet on solid ground. Not to mention the fact that I’m not sure if I want to scratch children off my list of possibilities yet. Bottom line, it’s too soon, and you’re asking too much. I don’t really know you, and you don’t really know me.”

“No?”

“No.” She kissed him softly, promising the world, but giving away nothing. “I feel like I need some time.”

As Drake felt the cold grip of reality wrench his heart, he clenched his jaw until he thought the bone would break. Emelia’s decision made sense. It was reasonable to take some time, given the circumstances. It was undeniably the logical thing to do. Despite how her words appealed to Drake’s analytical side, the sting burned anyway, scorching through his chest.

Not knowing what else to do, Drake took Emelia’s hand and softly kissed the delicate arch of her knuckles. “Take all the time you need.”