Claimed by the Alpha. Saranna DeWylde

malenkaya. I am.” His cold gaze was suddenly hot, raking over every inch of her as if she belonged to him. “The most dangerous in Aynkava.”

      She’d heard those lines before, males puffed up like blowfish on their own reputations. As if she were some mortal woman afraid of the crawling things in the dark and not a cop who’d been into the Abyss and clawed her way out for her Guild badge. Yet, with Luka Stanislav, she believed every word from his granite-carved mouth.

      It made her wet.

      Marijka knew part of it was the adrenaline, the rush of being alive when surrounded by death and the fear coursing through her veins as the coming pack signaled their descent onto the small village. Her analytical mind told her this was nothing but a chemical reaction, one she could overlook and put from her mind as soon as she parted company with the handsome Luka Stanislav.

      But she didn’t want to put it from her head. What Marijka did want was a few hours of mindless pleasure, of touch. Some connection with another living being, even if it were no deeper than a one-time fuck in the upstairs of a quaint country inn with honeyed vodka on her breath.

      “If you’re so dangerous, wouldn’t I be better off on my own?” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and knew there was something there...watching, waiting. Something hungry. Part of her wanted to run, but part of her wanted to stay, too, because leaving with him was a retreat.

      “Perhaps. That is your choice to make.” He shrugged again as if it mattered little to him either way, but Marijka watched his eyes flash from frigid indifference to languid heat. “Although I suggest whatever you choose, you do it quickly.”

      “The inn,” she blurted before she could stop herself.

      He held out her hand to her, his tanned fingers large and broad. “Then take my hand to mark your choice.”

      To show those who were watching she was with him. Under his protection. Dear God, who was he that a pack of werewolves feared to attack him?

      Marijka thrust her hand into his and he led her casually down the cobbled street, as if the beasts slavering for their blood in the dark behind them meant nothing.