Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(24)

“Okay. I’m doing it.” Glaring at him, she flashed into her wolf’s form.

Fury smiled at the sight of her on his bed. Dark brown with black and red, she was as beautiful in this form as she was in her human one. He ran his hand through her fur. “See, it’s not so bad, is it?”

Can you understand me?

“Of course I can. Just like you can understand me. Now look around the room. See how different things look. How much sharper sounds and scents are.”

She looked up at him.

“You’re still human, Lia. Even as a wolf. You retain all of yourself in this form.”

She flashed back to herself. “Do you—”

”Yes. What we are in one form, we are in the other. Nothing changes.”

Angelia sat there thinking that over. She’d assumed as a wolf that they became animals with no rational thought at all . . . but that hadn’t been true. She’d kept all her cognizance. The only difference had been heightened senses.

Gratitude swept through her, and as she went to kiss him, a searing pain tore through her hand. Gasping, she sat back, shaking it to help alleviate the pain.

Fury cursed before he lifted his hand and blew air across it. As he did so, the geometric pattern of his pack appeared on his palm.

It was identical to the one on hers.

Holy shit . . .

“We’re mates?” Angelia gasped.

Fury looked at her in disbelief. “How?”

She continued staring at her palm. In their world, the Fates determined who they would mate with at their births. The only way to find the mate was to sleep with them and if it was meant to be, they would have matching marks.

Those marks would only appear for three weeks, and if the woman failed to accept her mate within that time, she would be free to live out her life free of him. But she would never be able to have children with anyone else.

The male was left celibate until the day she died. Once mated, he could only sleep with his wife. He would never be able to have an erection for anyone else.

“We were chosen.” She placed her palm to his and smiled. “You are my mate.”

Fury was having a hard time with this. He’d always wondered what it would feel like to be mated. The Dark-Hunter Acheron had told him that he’d already met his mate, but he hadn’t really believed him.

To have it be the one woman he’d always loved . . .

It just didn’t happen like this.

He looked at Angelia, his heart pounding. “Will you accept me?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. I’m here naked with you because all my clothes fell off by accident and I can’t find them.”

“You’re a sarcastic little critter, aren’t you?”

“I learned it from you.”

Laughing, Fury leaned forward to kiss her, but before he could make contact with her lips, a bright flash exploded. He pulled back and scowled as four lions appeared in his room.

Their expressions were furious as they threw something at him.

He caught it and then grimaced before he dropped the jackal’s gruesome head to the floor. “What the hell is this?”

“I’m Paris Sabastienne,” the tallest lion said, “and I’m here to kill the bitch who killed and ruined my brothers.”





5


Angelia used her powers to clothe them as she braced herself for Fury to hand her over to the Litarians for their dinner.

Instead, he rose from the bed with an aura so deadly it gave her chills. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, tree-humper, but you don’t come into my brother’s house with that attitude and tone.” He looked down to the severed head on the floor. “And you damn sure don’t bring filth into the presence of my mate.”

“We’ve tracked her scent here.”

Fury gave him a sinister smirk. “And do you smell it in my room?”

One of the lions moved to grab Fury. Faster than she could blink, he twirled away from the lion and then pinned him against the wall. Hard.

“You really don’t want to test me,” Fury snarled, banging his head into the wall. “I’m not a gazelle on the savannah, punk. I’ll have your throat faster than you took the jackal’s head.”

Paris took a step forward. “There are four of us and one of you.”

“Two of us,” Angelia corrected, cutting him off from Fury. “And the only thing deadlier than a wolf is his mate when he’s threatened.”

Paris approached her. He sniffed the air around her as he eyed her warily.

“Is it her?” one of the other lions asked him.

“No,” he said disgustedly. “We’ve lost the scent.” He turned toward Fury. This isn’t over, Wolf. We won’t stop until we’re satisfied. If I find the bitch responsible, I will feast on her entrails.”

Fury shoved the lion he held at Paris. “You’re not welcome here. Really. Get out.”

Paris made a feral growl before they vanished.

“And take your nasty trophy head with you,” Fury snarled as he slung it into the portal with them so that it went wherever it was they were going.

Angelia let out a slow breath in relief. “What just happened? How did they not smell me?”

Fury shrugged. “The one power I did develop was the ability to mask my scent. Since it’s now part of yours, I was able to mask yours, too.”