I enjoyed dinner with Ryrk. He’s an ancient Lupoiux. An Alpha, with seventeen brothers and one sister. He is from a small village in eastern Europe and has been all over the world. He is an archiver—his task is to record every oral history of the Lupoiux people into written form.
Well, as he’d told it, not every pack was happy about that. He had the scars to prove it. He spoke of those scars as if they were battle badges. To a male warrior of any Kind, perhaps they are?
He is in Dardanos to hire some of Rand Taniss’s pack to serve as guards for him while he is in our country.
And he wants to leave his sister with Rand Taniss, too, as he doesn’t trust many of the other packs that are around here.
He is questioning leaving her at all after today’s attack. I don’t blame him. His sister is just twenty-six (same as my Julea), and he has never left her for more than a few days before.
He needs a safe place for her, as their brothers are involved in something incredibly dangerous in the Ukraine right now, and his next project is expected to take weeks. He wouldn’t say much more about that.
He did promise to bring his sister Solan to meet me tomorrow.
And when he walked me back to the sixth-floor elevator—the guard wouldn’t let him get off on my floor—he leaned down and kissed me.
Just swooped and did it. Right there in front of the guard! I rather think he may have been doing it to make that guard even more irritated than he already was.
Unlike Mak, who was far less aggressive about it, Ryrk just kissed me.
I didn’t know what to do, but I ended up with my arms around his waist and pressed right up against his hard, hot chest.
I’m not sure if I kissed him back exactly, but… I enjoyed it.
He pulled back and put one hand on my cheek. His thumb brushed my lips lightly. I just stared at him. What else could I do?
“I…I…”
“Shhh. If only…but we are not meant for one another, kitten. Though I would wish it so…”
I looked up, and into his brilliant blue eyes and knew.
This male was a very powerful ancient—and whatever he had seen of the future had terrified him.
And it involved me.