Marisa Chenery - Forever Claimed

After he put on his t-shirt, he picked his leather jacket off the floor. "I'll see you tonight." His heated gaze ran over her naked body. "I'll make the wait worth it. I promise."

With those words, he turned and walked out of her hotel room. Kamryn rolled onto her side and smiled. She had a feeling tonight would be one she wouldn't soon forget.

Algar pulled onto the long, gravel drive that led to the manor house where he and the rest of Tiw's warriors lived. After he parked his car, he made his way inside.

Voices drifted from the living room, but since Raed's wasn't among them, Algar continued on to the kitchen.

Lexi, Raed's mate, stood in front of the fridge. Her long, light brown hair fell forward when she leaned inside with the door open. Lexi turned with a water bottle in hand. She smiled when she saw him and closed the refrigerator door. "Back already?

Did you find her?"

Algar's gaze fell to Lexi's stomach when she rubbed a hand across it. At five months pregnant, she was just starting to show. "I found her. Is Raed around? I really need to talk to him."

Lexi shook her head. "You just missed him. He went out for a few groceries." She opened the water bottle and took a drink before she said, "If you want to talk to Raed about the girl, you can always talk to me. The way you're taken with her, I'm getting the feeling there'll soon be another mate added to the ranks around here."

Algar sighed. "I don't know, Lexi. It's kind of personal."

She rolled her dark blue eyes, took him by the arm, and moved him to the kitchen table, persuading him to sit. She took the chair next to him. "I'm mated to Raed.

I have just as much experience in that department as he does. If anything, I would know more about what it's like from your girl's perspective."

Lexi did have a point. She also had no clue as to what Raed was in the beginning.

"When you put it like that, maybe you're the one I should talk to."

"Well, I'm all ears."

"All right. I think Kamryn—that's her name—is my mate. I'm drawn to her and her scent. She also affects me more than any other woman ever has."

"She got to your wolf, huh?"

"Every time I smell her scent, my wolf throws back its head and howls. And then there's the whole business about my eyes going wolf and my claws."

He'd had a hard time hiding the changes that came over him while he'd been pleasuring Kamryn with his mouth. He'd known his eyes had gone wolf when his sight had become much sharper. Keeping his eyes adverted had been easy enough, but when his claws had pushed through his fingertips, he'd had to watch how he touched her.

Just before Kamryn had come, he'd had to use his mouth instead of his fingers to bring her to completion.

"I take it you fooled around with her a bit. Have you made love yet?"

"No. I'd planned to, but when the other things started to happen I held off."

The first time Raed had taken Lexi to his bed, he'd found his eyes going wolf and his claws coming out during sex weren't the only things that were different. While making love to his mate, just as he reached orgasm, his cock went like a wolf's as well. It swelled, locking him to Lexi while he continued to come a lot longer than was normal.

Raed had confided in Algar, worried Lexi wouldn't be able to accept him with all the differences.

Lexi gave him a knowing smile. "You're worried you'll swell just like Raed does with me? That isn't exactly something you can hide from her."

"I'm not really worried, more like at a loss as to what to do about it. Ideally, I'd want her to get to know me better before I have to explain about my being immortal and a were. I don't want to scare her away. Though, I'm going to have to work fast, since she's only here for a fortnight."

"Where's she from?"

"Niagara Falls, New York."

"A fellow American." Lexi was originally from Tampa. Raed had met her when she'd come to Norwich on holiday over the summer. "The only advice I can give you is don't try and act as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. Raed hoped I wouldn't notice in the beginning, which was stupid, really. I did notice. And if she asks about it, don't try to hold her off. Just do what you can to ease her into it slowly. She may freak a bit, but that's understandable."

"So you think I should just go ahead and make love to Kamryn? Let the chips fall where they may?"

"If you really think she's your mate, why not get the proof that she is? And if she is truly your mate, after you make love to her, Tiw's mark should start to appear. That will be a for sure sign."

Just as Tiw had marked his warriors, he'd also marked Lexi with the same White Wolf emblem the men carried on the cap of their left shoulders. Instead of being on the same spot on her body, Tiw had placed it high up on the right side of Lexi's back near her shoulder, marking her as a mate. He'd also given Lexi immortality.

"I plan to go back to Kamryn's hotel after I finish hunting tonight. I just wanted some advice from someone who's already gone through this."

"Well, you came to the right person." Lexi stood. "If Kamryn does end up being your mate, and she has a hard time accepting what you are, bring her to me. I can help her understand."

"Thanks, Lexi."

As Raed's mate walked out of the kitchen, Algar hoped when he did tell Kamryn everything she wouldn't 'freak out', like Lexi said. If she was his mate, and she shunned him for what he was, he didn't think he'd be able to let her go.

Nathan, the pack leader of the werewolves sired by Fenris, made his way stealthily through the stand of trees that bordered the back of the warriors' manor.

Night had started to darken the sky. The last time he'd been here, five months earlier, he and some of his pack had had a confrontation with the warriors. Nathan had suffered a loss, but he'd thought he'd gained a valuable tool to help bring down his enemy during the fight. He'd had Raed's mate, had even bitten her. With that bite, he'd thought she would have turned and instinctively found her way to their den before the next full moon, like the rest of the newly turned had done. That never happened.

Daring to stand close to the border where the trees ended, Nathan gazed at the large manor. He needed to see what had happened to Raed's mate. He didn't think the warrior would have killed her. His kind was far too noble to do anything like that.

His gaze shot to the back door of the manor when it opened and a woman stepped outside. It was Raed's mate. With the wind blowing across the property toward him, he sniffed the air. He frowned when he picked out the woman's scent. She didn't have the smell of his pack, as all members did. She didn't even have the scent of a werewolf, but something about her scent reminded him of the immortal warriors' scent.

And it wasn't because she was mated to one. The warriors' scent was incorporated into her own.

Nathan's eyes narrowed when he noticed the slight swelling of her belly under her shirt. She was pregnant. Before he thought about it, he took a step from the cover of the trees, intent on crossing onto the grassy garden, but he came up short. Something stopped him. Almost as if he'd run into an invisible wall. He moved farther down the border and met with the same barrier. Something was keeping him out. He knew of only one entity strong enough to keep his kind off the warriors' property—their Anglo-Saxon god, Tiw.

Unable to do anything more—but at least he'd found his answers—Nathan moved back into the trees. Right then, Raed came outside and joined his mate. The woman was no longer a viable option. Nathan would have to find another way to strike against the warriors.

The night's hunting proved to be quiet for Algar. He came across none of his prey, which didn't surprise him much. He and his fellow warriors usually found themselves taking down more prey during a full moon when newly turned shifted to werewolf form for the first time. The night of the full moon was three weeks away.