Chapter 39

With a heavy wool coat wrapped tight around me, I sat on a bench. Other than the last fading remnants of a gray-shrouded sun, darkness flooded the downtown park. A chilly Canadian wind whistled through the mostly leafless limbs of scattered trees. After sundown, any hint of warmth faded faster up there.

Hands shoved deep into the pockets, I scanned the glittering lights of the surrounding high-rises. My mind wandered ... to Mandy, of course. Not her sad expression after me announcing another trip away from her warm embrace. No, that I’d been forced to lie.

Impossible to explain that her lover and master was about to meet with a werewolf pack leader. Plus, more importantly, own his wife while discussing their future. Lisandra, always destined to be the other woman, and since she was married to Luka, I’d always be the other man ... or whatever I was.

So my excuse to Mandy claimed the travel was business. A powerful gust sent the collar flapping against my cheek.

“Not a complete lie,” I muttered through clenched teeth.

Ah, but invariably more lashed Lisandra and me like dissimilar boats riding a tide of intense unnaturalness. Again, the icy claws of fear grew within my core. Was our attraction unnatural?

“No,” I growled, shaking my head as another breeze drove skittering leaves along the jogging trail before me.

It was, if anything, hyper-natural. Pure, primal desire linked us. Cursed or gifted, but I was an alpha in any world. She’d recognized that ... as had her husband.

A pair of shadowy figures appearing from the gloom ended my ruminations. Luka strode towards me. Tall, his long face, normally swarthy, was pale in the reflected light of lampposts just flickering to life. In a sudden gust, wavy shocks of dark hair flailed around his skull. Beady eyes were like lasers, locked on my reclining form.

Behind him, with a thick sable cloak flowing at her ankles, Lisandra’s inestimable beauty. With hands clutching the sumptuous glossy fur and black tresses swirling in the wind, she also had found me. As she approached, her dark pools glittered ever brighter.

“Hello, Luka,” I said once they’d halted on the asphalt trail before me.

While flashing him a neutral grin, I held out my hand ... not for him to shake. At the curt twirl of my fingers, his entire body quivered.

“Uncalled for, Iakovos! Three long weeks! How can you—”

His whiny voice ended with the flick of my wrist. A simple gesture and those tangled brows tightened as his upper lip curled.

Ah, rituals.

“Do it,” I muttered.

Just as quickly as the tension had risen, his mouth relaxed and shoulders lowered. He was worthy of my concern, but we both knew I’d best him again. Only once had he tried: Paris, 1898, and that had gotten him tossed from a three-story window. When I stood, producing a coiled leather rope from my pocket, he gulped but didn’t move.

“Your wife,” I commanded.

With a curt nod, he turned and gripped the middle of the thick sable fur cape. Her hands fell away. As he inhaled all the air in the universe, she lifted her chest. A smile slid onto my face.

Even as another frigid blast sent leaves flapping past us, he opened the cloak to reveal that immaculate olive-skinned physique. Unclothed, but for the glossy black high-heels strapped to slender ankles and the thin velvet band still tight to her throat, she took my breath away ... again.

Thick dark nipples begged for me as much as her bright eyes. With the breeze, I couldn’t smell her need, but even from there her clit was obvious. Angry and prominent atop glistening, flushed petals. After my quick nod at him, Luka let the cloak fall shut. She made no move to grasp the fur, and the voluminous material flapped wide in a gust, offering a heart-thumping view of my prize as I approached her.

“I accept,” I said, glancing at him and raising the hand with the rope.