His den was situated in the heart of their territory, on a tiny jut of land that nearly cut between the two halves of the lake. Swathed in darkness cast by massive, old growth trees and underbrush, the clever use of mirrors and proprietary m-tech nearly hid it from view.
It was not the home he grew up in. That den was knocked down after his father’s death. Viktor could no more stand to live there again than he could look at his father’s picture. It didn’t matter that it had been nearly twenty years since the old bastard met his gruesome and well deserved end. He would never stop hating him.
Slipping through the hidden door, he didn’t bother turning on the lights as he padded into the main living area. Like many shifters, he had an aversion to most walls. The only kind he found permissible were those that protected cubs from the cold and wet. Inside, only small concessions for privacy were made for even crowded homes.
Seeing as he didn’t live with anyone else and hadn’t brought a lover into his space ever, he only bothered with blocking off his bedroom and the bathrooms — mostly so nosy packmates didn’t accidentally catch him in a compromising position.
That didn’t mean he didn’t care about his living space, though. On the contrary, Viktor was obsessive about the state of his den. Not a single corner went uninspected or piece of furniture came into it without meeting every last one of his exacting standards.
Was it sturdy? Did it smell good? Could it hold up to claws? If a cub stood on it, would they risk a broken neck? Would his mate prefer a soft mattress or a firm one?
Camille had different dietary needs than he did, so he’d gone out of his way to secure a specially designed refrigerator meant to store large amounts of meat.
She liked light, so he had large, reflective windows installed.
He knew she liked clothes, so he’d even gone so far as to build her a walk-in closet. It, like everything else, sat empty, unused. Waiting for her.
Camille had no way of knowing that he had spent the last twenty years building his life around her. Even when he didn’t think he would ever have her in his life again, she went into every decision he made.
He thought of her as he stripped and stepped into his shower, big enough for two. He thought of her as he scrubbed the sweat from his skin and stared at the small, violet tiles he embedded with his own hands into the wall. Each one was made of cut glass that caught the light with an iridescent shimmer.
He was glad, at least, that he would not have to give up his den when they moved. All their homes were modular and made to fit seamlessly in with the surroundings they found themselves in without damaging the environment.
When they left Merced, it would be as if no one had lived there at all.
Viktor turned his back on the hot spray and shuddered, tracing one of the tiles with the tip of his finger. His mind was a tangle of conflicting needs, but he knew that he could not back down from the chase again.
He needed his mate. He needed to touch her, to know she was well, to look into the violet eyes that sparkled with humor one moment and burned with ire the next. He needed to know that she was his, and he needed to put his mark on her, the consequences be damned.
Closing his eyes, he took himself back to the Summit.
He knew the moment he made the choice to pursue her down the winding hallway that he wouldn’t let her go again. It was as if his coyote had simply sat inside him, waiting for the moment to slip his leash. When he saw her walk into the green room, all fury and long legs, the leash snapped.
Viktor couldn’t have stopped himself from chasing after her if he tried. The need to be with her stole his breath, his common sense, and when he caught her and smelled the sweet, honeyed scent of her desire…
Viktor braced one arm above him and reached down with the other to squeeze his aching cock. The damn thing hadn’t given it a rest since their interlude in the meeting room. He was perpetually half hard, and even the memory of how her skin tasted, the scent of her, drove him wild. She made him ache like he never had before.
The elders weren’t fucking around when they called it the fever. It was like a sickness raging in his blood, this need for the woman who let him have only a taste of her sweetness.
The same as every day since he had the privilege of making her come, Viktor stroked himself to the memory. Hot water pounded against the tense muscles of his back as he remembered the feeling of her slick skin under his questing fingers.
Perhaps he should have been gentler with her, but instinct told him to be rough, that she wanted him to make her bend. And when he plunged his fingers into her silky soft cunt, so wet and ready for him, he knew he was right.
It was a frenzy, and the pace of his hand stroking and squeezing his flushed cock matched the memory. Desperation and the crazed desire to sink his fangs into her before someone else did only made the lust burn hotter, more furious. Pressure built as he recalled the prick of her claws in his thighs and the way she reached back to handle him.
He rutted against her ass like a damn teenager, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her gasps were soft and needy, her inner walls a molten ripple around his thrusting fingers, and when she squeezed the head of his cock like she wanted to punish him—
Viktor came with a shudder, painting those lovingly placed tiles with his release.
Sagging against the wall, he braced his forehead against his arm and breathed deeply. The scent of water vapor replaced the wildflowers and honey of his memory. The heat of the water washed away the silk of her skin. A sense of keen loss quickly overshadowed the temporary euphoria of his orgasm. His closed eyes stung.
Viktor curled his fingers into white-knuckled fists.
He’d let her go once, but that was a lifetime ago. Viktor was no longer a scared boy, wondering how he could keep an elvish mate safe in a world that would reject them both. He was a man. He was an alpha. He was hers.
All he needed to do was make her see those things, too.
Chapter Eleven
The Rotunda was a San Francisco landmark. It was also one of the handful of restaurants in the city that actually served elvish food, probably because the Solbournes owned it.
Situated at the top of a sprawling, high-end shopping center, it got its name from the fact that it was, in fact, a rotunda. The restaurant itself was a series of tables scattered along a circular balcony. If you looked over the elaborately molded railing, you would see shoppers milling about in the floors below you, crossing gold-veined marble floors as sweet instrumental music filtered through hidden speakers all around them.
The walls and decor were cream and gold leaf, modeled in a slightly toned down rococo style, and the tables were elegantly arrayed with silver cutlery on top of pristine white table cloths. Above it all, a massive oval-shaped dome of stained glass soared overhead.
Sun shone through caramel-colored glass painstakingly placed to look like swaying foliage and filigree. A blazing sun crowned one end of the dome, spreading its rays of light out over the scene set in the middle: an astonishingly large ship riding the green waves of a wind-tossed ocean. At first glance, the blue sky behind it seemed faintly patterned, but upon closer inspection, one found that it was actually emblazoned with hundreds of subtle Solbourne crests.
It was a glass monument created to celebrate the day the Solbournes took the city, but every time Camille saw it, she rolled her eyes.
It was gorgeous, of course. Like any elf, she was awestruck by anything that enhanced the radiance of Glory’s light. She just didn’t think her family was one particularly worth celebrating.