ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (150 page)

He leaned down and kissed me, and it felt the same it had at the party, when my body had felt charged with a surge of electricity and I’d felt warm all over.

But then the dream changed. He wasn’t the handsome stranger with the stunning eyes anymore. His fancy clothes ripped, his body growing into something grotesque, and when he grinned it looked like he was snarling instead, and looking at me like I was something to eat. As a predator that was unnerving, I was usually the one doing the hunting. But now I was being hunted, and by a man… no. Somewhere in the last two seconds his face had changed. His teeth had lengthened and sharpened, almost like mine, and he had a crazed look in his eyes.

“Grant?” I asked.

“Grant is unavailable at the moment,” he said in the voice of a message recorder. I frowned.

He laughed at me, a terrible laugh that danced around me, and when I looked at his face again he wasn’t the handsome man I’d met at all. He was ugly, beastly, big and bulging. He’ turned into a monster.

I sat up, the sound of the phone cutting in my nightmare. I shivered and found my phone on the nightstand.

“Hello?” I asked. I felt out of breath, and rubbed my bare arm with my free hand.

“Is this a bad time?” he asked. It was Grant. His voice was soft and soothing.

“No,” I said, and glanced at the time on the clock next to me. It was almost time for sunset.

“I wanted to see you,” he said. “Do you want to meet up?”

“I do,” I answered. His voice over the phone sounded nothing like it had in my dream, and when I spoke to him the nightmare faded. “Where do you want to go?”

“It’s going to be a beautiful night, I’m told. Shall we meet at the park?”

I agreed and we set a time for an hour after sundown. That gave me enough time to get ready. I dressed in dark blue jeans and gray boots that came to above the knee. A green blouse that made my eyes stand out, and I left my hair handing loose over my shoulders. The park was dark and quiet when I pulled into the parking lot.

Grant stepped out the moment I switched off my car.

“I’m glad you came,” he said and smiled. He wore jeans too, and simple black trainers. A white shirt stretched across his chest and arms, and the black mask was gone.

And he was drop-dead gorgeous. When he smiled at me it just made him look more handsome. His eyes were a dark amber, not a horrible yellow like in my dreams.

“Where else would I be?” I asked.

We walked through the park. The night was beautiful, as predicted, the moon fuller still, heading towards full moon. It cast a silvery light on everything, making it look magical. Or maybe that was just because I was with Grant. We spoke about everything, and I loved to listen to him talk. His voice was deep and silky smooth, and when he spoke about some things I felt like it was caressing my skin.

We stopped in the middle of the park. The paths all came together here and circled the lake. The water was clear and smooth like glass, and the moon reflected in it, an almost-full globe of ice.

Grant looked at me, lifted his hand and hooked a strand of hair behind my ear. His eyes were on mine, and I felt exposed, like he could see right through me. He stepped closer. He was going to kiss me. My stomach turned – more butterflies – and I tipped my head back so he could let his lips come down on mine.

When I looked into his eyes again, they were yellow.

I froze, then took a step back.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Your eyes... they’re yellow.”

The flashes of my nightmare came back, and my skin broke out in goosebumps. He frowned and looked me up and down, like he was judging me or trying to figure something out.

“What are you?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re not human,” he said, shaking his head and taking a step away from me. “You can’t be. So what are you?”

“What do you mean I can’t be human?” I asked. I was offended at that. It overrode the strands of fear that had crept into my body. What does it look like I am?”

Grant hesitated for a moment. Then he shook his head again. “I don’t know. Usually I do, but you… I usually know.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. I felt unbalanced. I became aware of the atmosphere, thick and sticky, like we were stuck. There was magic, too. Not just the magic of the full moon.

Grant made a growling noise.

“What are you?” he asked again, his voice harder this time.

“What does it matter?” I asked. He took another step away, and his hands went up to his head. He held onto it like he was going to lose it. I could feel the power in the air now, and it was coming off him. Raw power and authority, the same I’d felt from him at the party. He made a low rumbling sound in his throat like he was growling.

And suddenly I knew. The muscles, the eyes, the attitude. The magnetic attraction towards him.

“You’re a werewolf,” I said softly. How did I not notice this before? How did I miss it? Supernatural creatures were tuned to each other. Grant’s growling sounds became louder.

“Is that something I need to worry about?” I asked. Grant shook his head in between his hands, but it didn’t look like an answer. It looked like he was trying to shake something off. He grunted.

Suddenly more people appeared, coming from the trees. There were men and women. The men were bulky, built like Grant, and they were all handsome. The women were beautiful, tall and slender like models, but they carried themselves like lethal weapons. And I was sure they were.

“Grant?” I asked. I was suddenly surrounded.

“Alpha, are you alright?” one of the men asked and stepped up to him. “You called out to us.”

Grant was standing upright again now, tall and proud.

“I’m alright,” he said and the other man backed away.”

“We can take the vampire out,” one of the other men said, and I felt my body go cold. Grant’s face turned ashen and he looked how I felt. He hadn’t been able to tell I was a vampire. Just that I wasn’t human. Now I was surrounded by a pack of wolves, and I had nothing.

He’d called his pack. I could do the same.

A shock wave spread out from me, rippling like a wave in a circle around me and fanning out to the neighborhoods around me. Two minutes. That was how long I took for the first vampire to materialize next to me. Suddenly there were two more, and then five, and then the whole clan appeared. I was safe now. The wolves glared at us. Some snarled, some women had their teeth bared even though they were still human.

I could feel the blood lust next to me, but they wouldn’t attack until provoked. Vampires weren’t fighters. We protected our own, but we didn’t do feuds.

“What’s this?” Grant asked, looking at my clan.

“Insurance,” I answered. I wasn’t going to stand alone, facing a pack of wolves when they were our enemy. Two groups of predators could never occupy the same territory.

“You do understand what this means,” Grant said. There was something evil about him now, something menacing that hadn’t been there before. It covered the attractive qualities he’d had when we’d met, and when we’d met up tonight.

“We don’t want to fight,” I answered. “You forced my hand.” By bringing the rest of his wolves – why had he done that? – he’d forced me to rally the troops as well. And that was a challenge and an acceptance, even if it wasn’t what we’d intended.

“Full moon,” Grant said. We’ll have it out then.

Two nights from now. The wolves nodded. My vampires nodded in agreement. It was going to happen, and it was going to be bloody. This would go down as my worst date yet.

Chapter 3

These are the things that didn’t happen in the romance novels I always read: prince charming wasn’t an arch enemy. Damsel in Distress didn’t have a clan of bloodsucking monsters at her back. Neither of them had the ability to summon a war in the blink of an eye. When they disagreed it was over something petty like money or social standing. Not a difference in species that could never be together the way leopards and tigers didn’t mix.

With Grant it had turned out to be Shakespeare with a twist. Romeo and Juliet where darkness ruled. And instead of two lovers dying in each others arms, we were throwing our subjects into the mix for a war that this world hadn’t seen since the dark ages.

I hated to be the one that broke the rules. The exception to that ‘happily ever after’ girls were always yearning for.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I’d gone to my parents’ house after the awkward little encounter in the park, where they’d given me all sorts of hell about how I’d let something like this happen. It hadn’t been my fault I hadn’t noticed he was an Alpha. They disagreed. As a vampire I’d had to be alert to these things.

The truth was I just didn’t care. I didn’t believe in the war between them. I didn’t care about primal urges and animalistic territories. I liked the humans and their uncomplicated structures. I didn’t want to be one, but I liked how their were less under currents than with us who had to live in the same body with a monster all our lives.

I was stuck in my parents’ house now, because it was daylight. I’d forgotten how trapped I felt in their house after a while. I’d needed some sort of comfort which I hadn’t gotten much of, and now they were out waiting the daylight. I hadn’t slept since dawn. I felt restless and irritated.

By the time the sun set again I was cranky from a lack of sleep. There was movement in the house but I didn’t want to face my parents again. The moment the last rays of the sun had disappeared behind the horizon I dematerialized out of my parents’ home. I cut it ridiculously close to sunset, I might end up with a tan but I was sure I wouldn’t get fried.

I didn’t go home. I didn’t want to. There was nothing for me there, either, and the night air called to me. I had to get out of the house. So I went to the park. The same place where a date had turned into a nightmare.

I sat down on the bench and looked over the park. The moon was rising, one night away from being full. It was an almost complete circle hanging in the sky, casting a milky light over everything. The park had a silver quality to it, magical. All the colors had faded to shaded of gray, and the shadows cast by the trees were long and ragged, like they were struggling to take shape. It was easy to create monsters out of them, to see things that didn’t exist.

One of the shadows I’d been staring at suddenly moved, and I jumped. Someone stepped out of the shadows, and when the moonlight caught on his hair, the square jaw, the sculpted cheek bones, I realized it was him. Grant.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him. I felt a dull flutter in my chest, like the butterflies had risen up, and my mouth felt dry.

“The park is public property,” he said. His voice was deep and thick and I could feel it like fingers on my skin. I got goosebumps even though it wasn’t particularly cold. Grant walked until he was right in front of me. From this angle he was larger than life. He wore casual civilian clothes, jeans and a t-shirt with a jacket over. It looked very normal.

But nothing about him was normal. He radiated power and authority only an Alpha could. How had I missed the signs before? His muscles bulged under his clothes and his eyes were confident. He took another step towards me, and he moved fluidly. I stood up because I didn’t want to be seated. I didn’t know if he was a threat or not.

It was a sin for a threat to look that good. When he looked at me something moved behind his eyes. The animal inside. I was aware of its presence. Maybe it was because it was close to full moon. Maybe it was because I knew what to look for, I understood people who had monsters as their other half.

The atmosphere changed between us. It grew and expanded around us until there was so much of it I struggled to breathe. It felt like his presence was wrapping around me, drawing me in. And to be honest, I didn’t really think it would be such a bad idea, being drawn in by this man.

I shook my head. What was I thinking? He was my enemy. I wasn’t the leader of my clan, but he was a werewolf, and an Alpha at that. I could see it in his eyes, plain and simple.

“I shouldn’t be her,” I said, trying to take a step away. He followed me and fear tugged at me. Not a lot of it, but it was there. He breathed in deeply, like he was smelling me. There was something compelling about it, like I wanted him to do that, but he frowned.

“You’re scared of me,” he said.

“You declared war again my clan.”

“You started it.”

“What?” I took a deep breath, tried to think straight through the scent that was coming off him now like waves. It was a dark, natural scent. Manly and dominant. And it wad delicious.

He sighed.

“This wasn’t what I had in mind. Not for last night, and not for now.”

“Then what?” I asked. “What are you here for?”

He opened his mouth to answer me, but nothing came out. He looked at me, his eyes drowning deep, and I could feel his gaze on me like a physical touch. His eyes slid over my body and I felt everywhere he looked. He smiled, instead of talking.

“What?” I asked again. I wanted to sound defiant but I couldn’t. He was taking my breath away.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just wanted to see you again.” He took a step closer to me and I gasped. The warmth radiated off him. He was so close I could see the faint freckles on his nose. His eyes were hypnotizing, drawing me in. And to be honest, I didn’t mind at all.