Chapter 11
B ronze took advantage of Clara’s immobilizing fear and flung her behind him. A quick shift of his shoulders had his pack free and anchored like a boulder in front of the female. Before her shock had cleared enough to register the threat, he already had his sickle sword in hand.
“Lower your eyes, princess,” he said. The voice that left him was wholly of a different being. Thick, dark, and possessing a quality that, had it come from another, would have lifted the hairs from his body.
He didn’t have time to check whether she obeyed. A flash of brown and gray blurred from hilltop to boulder and leaped through the air with blinding speed. Bronze pivoted and called on his metallic skin, but the animal’s teeth connected with the meat of his shoulder moments before his power had fully armored him.
Bronze grunted through the bite and tucked them into a roll that would bring them a good distance away from Clara. The coyote thrashed through the tumult and only removed its jaw when the curve of Bronze’s blade met the underside of the beast’s tail, precariously close to the canine’s twig and berries. Bronze had never been opposed to fighting dirty, especially when the universal rules of he started it rang true across all species.
Plus, hello, balls.
The coyote’s sharp whelp rang out beneath Bronze, robbing his attention from the powerful hind legs that kicked him in the stomach. Now freed, the beast pounded through the forest on the heels of its earlier echoing cry. Not wanting to risk another altercation, Bronze bounded after the coyote. Where there was one, there was often more, and given his luck, the more in question would likely include a well-structured family unit with a mama, an aunt or two, a host of pups, zero patience for intruders, and no interest in an uninvited lunch guest.
Just who would be the guest at and for said lunch was a debate Bronze needed to stomp out right the fuck now.
Bronze beat feet through the forest, urging every ounce of his celestial strength into his metallic frame. With each stride, however, his breaths became harder to rake in. Even the weight of his sword was proving too much for him. He had to tighten his grasp where the hilt met the blade just to maintain his hold. His lack of speed was a worry he hadn’t expected, but one he had no time to examine. He quickly pushed the thought from his mind and propelled himself harder, skidding around a rocky bend where the coyote’s tracks led him.
There was no warning that time. No growl or paws padding in his direction. Only the surprise lunges of three different coyotes blocking out the sun as they leaped at him high up from boulders that snaked northward on the forested hillside. Teeth came next, then claws and bite after bite of ruthless determination.
Guess I found their den. Wonderful.
And, yes, they were females.
His sword was quickly lost to the attacking bodies above him, so fists and feet took over, but it wasn’t enough. As soon as he managed to kick one coyote off, another regained ground just as fast.
Bronze gritted his teeth when a pair of fangs punctured his calf. What the fuck? To his horror, his bronze armor had begun to recede, leaving a whole lot of cotton-wrapped mortal rawhide for some very hungry ladies.
“Shit!”
One coyote adjusted their bite and clamped down harder. Fangs scraped across bone again, and it was the literal gut punch he needed to summon his celestial fire. Bronze connected with his core power and dragged it from his center, but not before one of the coyotes lunged for his throat.
A massive white blur swept across his field of vision, blanketing his surroundings in a whirlwind of ghostly ivory. And fur.
The weight of the coyotes left his chest in an instant, and Bronze scrambled back on all fours. Before him, a white wolf almost twice the size of the coyotes tackled all three of the canines to the ground. As soon as one rose up, it was immediately met with the business end of a maw more ferocious and deadly than anything that had been using him as a chew toy earlier. And the wolf didn’t go for the legs or tails.
Oh, no. It was cold, cunning, ruthless.
With a feint to the left, the wolf’s mouth connected with the spine of one coyote, while it swiped a thickly padded paw at the remaining two. A sharp jerk of its head brought the wounded coyote to the ground in a cry of howling pain. Taking the hint, the other two backed away slowly. Only when there was enough distance between the downed dog and the others did the white wolf release its grip.
But it didn’t back away. The growl that came next wasn’t just a warning but a statement. A veritable back the fuck off loud enough to shake leaves from trees and confidence from predators. Sure as shit, the coyotes, even the injured one, wasted no time and scurried away with whatever remained of their tales nestled firmly between bloodied legs.
If Bronze had been a smarter male, he’d have turned tail along with the coyotes. But as any of his brothers could attest on more than one occasion, his stupid bucket was just filled too damn high. And now was one of those times.
Bronze lay there, chest heaving and, yeah, parts of him still oozing that he’d prefer didn’t, and just stared at the creature before him. Seemed like the best thing to do when words failed a fella.
A powder-white pelt as thick as any snow bank flowed in sleek, strong lines around the most magnificent wolf he’d ever seen. The creature didn’t have the arrogant presence of the gray wolves common among the White Mountains, and it was clear why. Arrogance had no place where majesty reigned, and boy, was he looking at it. Everything, from the more delicate snout and ears to the longer, leaner legs, drew him in like a siren’s song.
Then it tilted its head toward him, and he locked gazes with familiar tawny-brown eyes.
Clara?
The wolf dipped its head to the ground and slowly, as if it was a random Tuesday and the thing hadn’t just frightened off three coyotes, settled the rest of its lithe body on the forest floor. Seconds turned to centuries as that glorious white pelt morphed into the long wavy locks Bronze had first seen floating on the surface of the Ellis River. Bones lengthened and claws rounded out into perfect sets of toes and fingers.
It was over before it started, and yet Bronze would have bet his favorite Ducati that he’d been sitting there long enough for primer and a good two layers of that fancy eggshell-coated paint to dry.
Intellectually, he knew Clara was a lycan and what that entailed. Seeing it in action, however, even as one who could transform his own skin into bronze?
Breathtaking. Miraculous.
Beautiful.
But it wasn’t until Clara lay on the forest floor fully human—and fully naked—did he realize the severity of what he’d gotten himself into.
And what he feared he could no longer turn back from.
The shift to her mortal form was much harder that time, owing, no doubt, to how long she’d gone placating her wolf into remaining so. But every creature had its limits, and as she’d caught up to Bronze and witnessed those coyotes sink their teeth into his no-longer-metallic flesh, her she-wolf had had enough.
As grateful as Clara was to her wolf, the need to speak and inspect Bronze’s injuries currently outweighed the need to let the creature roam free.
Sorry, girl, but he needs us.
Clara lay hunched on the ground in the manner in which her wolf had left her, belly down, knees tucked beneath her, arms folded at the elbows and forearms extended toward Bronze. Her eyes barely had time to focus before his legs, bloody and torn, appeared before her. He squatted, and she got a precursory eyeful of the damage, but he was careful to keep the pain from registering on his soil-smudged face.
A face that had been solid metal a few short moments ago.
“Let me see. How bad is it?” Clara pushed off the ground in a hurry, then slowed when his gaze dropped to her exposed breasts.
Crap. She’d never shifted in front of males before, and for this very reason. While nudity was a natural inevitability of lycanthropic heritage, that did not automatically equate with a lack of modesty.
Or, for that matter, how males from outside her race might view her body.
“A moment, please,” she pleaded when he didn’t move. Clara searched around frantically for her traveling cloak, which she had managed to throw off and save, along with the relic, before her wolf shifted. The rest of her clothes were most likely tattered shreds, unfortunately, but there was nothing to be done about it.
When she didn’t immediately see her garment and Bronze still hadn’t moved, a new worry bloomed within her chest. In this part of the forest, following that commotion, they were exposed, and she more so. They were not far from her father’s lands, from other lycans who could stumble upon them and surmise a different sort of picture from what had actually happened.
Any onlookers would simply see a bloodied male hovering above a naked lycan princess. In the forest. Alone.
All it would take was for one of her father’s guards to patrol just a hair outside their jurisdiction, or a merchant firmly in the king’s pockets to see what they didn’t understand and report on what would earn them the most financial loyalty and security.
It would all be over before it started. The games. The mating arrangement. Any plans for a future monarchy that wasn’t centered around tyrannical injustice.
All because she had just shifted to save a male who, according to the wrong potential bystander, would possibly seek to ruin her and, by extension, her father.
“Bronze. Please. You need to listen to me. I must rise and?—”
With the precision of a matador but none of the showmanship and a fair bit more grunting, Bronze shook out her cloak from behind his back and let the heavy fabric settle over her body. Once she was fully covered, he lifted her hair through the collar, fanned it out over her shoulders, and replaced the relic around her neck.
But his touch didn’t stop there. Even after she was fully concealed, his fingers lingered on the curve of her shoulder before brushing the tips of her hair and traveling farther down until he’d caressed every vertebrae along her spine.
The stroke was no more than fingertips on fabric, but she felt it everywhere. Her skin tightened in response to her hammering heart, and when she risked a glance at the spot on his chest where his own organ beat, the similar rise and fall of his body matched hers.
Both were breathing rapidly. Both were seemingly struggling for more.
“I have a rule,” he said, breaking the spell and assisting her to her feet while she did the same for him.
“Inform me later. Right now, we’re exposed and too close to my father’s lands for anonymity. Besides, you’re injured.” Oh God, and was he ever. The most egregious of the wounds was the bite on his calf, where angry red flesh hung open, revealing mangled muscle that would need far more than simple stitching to heal. How he was even putting weight on the leg, let alone standing upright, was either a testament to his warrior’s mettle or the sheer arrogance of his sex.
Likely both.
“My rule is never let them run.”
“Why not?”
“Because running away is so much more enjoyable when you have someone to do it with, whether it’s chasing or coercing. Why let the coyote have all the fun?”
Clara blinked away the absurdity of his words and shook her head in disbelief. “You’re insane. Do you know that?” She gripped the edge of her cloak and was about to rip it off to cover his wound—or his mouth, she wasn’t sure which one yet—when his hands wrapped around hers, making her drop the hem.
“You’d be so much fun to run with, princess. Next time, let’s plan it a little bit better, though. There are only so many more surprises like you a male like me can handle.”
If she were any other female, she’d have known how to handle such a remark. She’d have the knowledge, experience, even the skilled repartee to fling back as a rejoinder. And if he were any other male, he’d be stoically kind to the point of animatronic and humor her for the sake of her bloodline.
But she was not any other female, and he was not any other male.
Yes, he certainly was in store for many more surprises. She just had to trust that he was strong enough to withstand them all before her luck ran out.
Because the truth of the matter was, despite what she’d planned for her original course of action, she was beginning to like the angel. Very much so.
And wasn’t that the biggest and most perplexing surprise of all?
Oh, what a pair they made, truly.
Clara pulled her hands out of his and took a few steps back. “If surprises frustrate you, then you’re really not going to like what I have to tell you.”
“What’s that, my lady?”
She gestured toward a copse of trees in the distance and gripped her cloak tighter, armoring herself as best she could. “We’re here.”