Her unexpected mate

Her brother

*Senya*

What he does, however, is escort me to my car. lt carries no markings, had been one my husband used on occasion when he wished to go someplace where he didn’t want his identity or title known. Aaron Tempest keeps his arm around me the entire way, with me snuggled against his side as though he is reluctant to be rid of me. I like thinking that perhaps he is.

He gives me another kiss, this one on the back of my gloved hand, before assisting me into the car where I settle in against the comfortable seat. Serdal had been a stickler for comfort.

Aaron Tempest leans against the frame of the doorway and studies me. Or perhaps he is striving to find a way to invite me back in that wouldn’t wound his pride. “If you still want to be bedded come tomorrow, return here”.

As though my request had been a lark and I will change my mind with the arrival of more time. “You vastly overestimate your appeal, Mr. Tempest. You rejected my offer. I’m not likely to come crawling back”.

He gives me another one of those saucy grins that is beginning to irritate me, even as they cause my heart to flutter. “We will see how you feel tomorrow after taking me into your dreams tonight”.

With that, he slams the door shut, gives an order to my driver, and the car moves forward.

It takes everything within me not to crane my head out the window and watch as my increasing distance from him causes him to shrink and disappear into nothing.

After arriving at the pack house, still in somewhat of a daze from the fervent kiss Aaron Tempest had delivered, I remove the key from my purse and unlock the front door.

The expanse of gardens, brick walls, hedgerows, and trees surrounding me would prevent any prying neighbor from catching a glimpse of me. Although at this time of night, it is unlikely anyone is awake to peer out of a window. The only one who knows I have gone out is my lady’s maid, Bailey, who had helped me get dressed, and the driver who had taken me to the notorious club. I trust them to be discreet and keep my confidence.

With the laces of my mask threaded through my fingers, I make my way up the stairs, my mind replaying those breathless moments spent within the arms of the club owner. Who would have thought that a kiss could be so encompassing ?

I must have kissed Serdal a thousand times, but I have never opened my mouth to him, and he had most certainly never thrust his tongue between my lips and claimed everything within, claimed me. Is it because Aaron Tempest is a commoner that he takes such liberties ? Are those in my station simply too civilized to respond in such an animalistic manner ?

Opening the door to my bedchamber, I walk in, close it, and lean against the

mahogany, remembering how Aaron had done the same. I glance toward the bed, illuminated by a solitary lamp left burning on the bedside table. With a sigh, I realize I need a moment to gain the wherewithal to prepare for slumber. I wondered what Aaron had been preparing for when he had leaned against the door … not to ravage me perhaps. My lips spread into the barest hint of a smile. I have never before felt desired. It is an incredible feeling.

“Did you have success at getting bedded ?”

With a tiny screech, I jerk my gaze to the darkened corner where my brother sits, only his outstretched legs visible. I do not hide my displeasure as I march over to my vanity, set the mask on it, and begin tugging off my gloves. “What are you doing in here ?”

The Lycan Prince of Chambers slowly pushes himself to his feet. All of twenty-seven, he is not a towering man for a lycan, and yet he has inherited our father’s ability to appear intimidating.

Although I have no doubt Aaron Tempest would brush him away as though he were merely a pesky fly buzzing about. “Making sure you saw to your duty”.

I suspect my brother had mourned my husband’s passing more than anyone,

because standing at the foot of the bed, watching as my husband, the Alpha of Lush valley drew his last breath, he looked over at me and said. “Pray tell me you are with child, lest we be ruined”.

I couldn’t tell him what he wanted. For seven years, in spite of my husband occasionally coming to my bed, I have remained barren. Without a male heir, the title will become extinct and the entailed properties will pass to the lycan queen’s Treasury. It seems my husband and what few relations he had possessed had not excelled at procreating or surviving long. Perhaps a man as virile as Mr. Tempest might have better luck at giving me what I require.

Because my family, in spite of my brother’s title, is as poor as dirt. And I have a very short time in which to get myself with child. I could still claim it as the Alpha’s if it arrives ten months after his death. Babies sometimes arrive late. But after that …

And if it happens to ba a daughter, while the title would still become extinct, the girl would eventually inherit all the entailed properties and land, because the terms of the entailment allows for it to go to a female if she has a direct bloodline to the first Alpha which I would ensure the world believes she does.

What I am considering is deceitful and without honor, but I have need of the estates while the queen does not. If Serdal had been content for everything to be handed over to the lycan queen, he would never have married me, wouldn’t have tried to get me pregnant. He had worked hard to ensure his properties were the finest and richest in all of the land. Surely he wanted to see his legacy carried on. Where is the harm in the world believing the child had come from his loins ?

I have always been a good and faithful wife. When the cold winds had blown across the moors and the snows had fallen and he had taken ill, I had nursed him hour upon hour, wiping the sweat from his brow, changing his nightshirt when it became damp, encouraging him to eat, reading to him until I was hoarse. I truly mourn the loss of him, riddled with guilt because I had failed to give him the one thing he asked of me: an heir.

Sitting on the cushioned bench, I begin pulling pins from my hair while glaring at my brother’s reflection in the mirror. “Perhaps we would all be better served if you would attend to your duties as I’m well aware of mine”.

“See that you are”. He heads for the door.

“Arnould ?”

He stops but doesn’t look back at me. Our father had brought the family to ruin with his inability to make wise investments, his reckless spending and gambling, and his penchant for brandy. Serdal had money to burn but he had been frugal, probably the reason he had so much squirreled away. While he had been willing to help my family to a certain extent, it hadn’t been enough to see them well situated.

The trustees of the entailment are presently limiting funds until it is known if I am carrying an heir. Apparently, they do not want me wasting what they do not consider legally mine. “If anyone learns of this”.

“No one is going to learn of it”. He says impatiently. “Only you and I know you are not presently with child. Only you and I know you will rectify that within the next week or so. As long as your lover doesn’t realize your womb was empty when you came to him … and if he does suspect, it will be his word against ours. Who will give any credence to the ramblings of a commoner ? You did go with a commoner, didn’t you ?”

I nod. Unfortunately, I have chosen a very smart and clever one.

“I do hope it isn’t too unpleasant for you. It may take more than once, you know”.

“I’m well aware”.

He suddenly appears uncomfortable, the first time he has seemed so since he had cooked up this scheme. “Take strength from the fact that we’re doing this for the girls”.

The girls. my three sisters. The twins, who are eighteen, and Alice, who is sixteen. I want them to have the choice I had never had, want them to be able to marry for love.

I glance down at my hands, surprised to find them knotted so tightly in my lap.

“What if I’m barren ?” The words are barely a whisper, but the fear has dogged my heels for some years now. My husband had frequented my bed less often as our efforts failed to get me with child. The last few months, he had not come to me at all.

“Mother wasn’t. She gave birth to seven children”.

Although two had died in infancy. They had come after I was born and before the twins, which is the reason so many years separated me from my sisters. “I’m not certain that a vibrant womb is handed down from one generation to the next”.

“The fault could have rested with him. It’s not as though his family tree is teeming with descendants, at least not on his father’s side. Which is the reason you are now in a position to lose everything or ensure that you hold on to it”.

By passing another man’s child off as the Alpha of Lush valley’s heir, the highest ranking Alpha pack in the country. The deception doesn’t sit well with me, but our resources and options are so limited.

“Is the club as decadent as Torie claims ?” I am taken aback by his abrupt change in topic and the way his eagerness to know the truth of the establishment and his hope of its titillating nature reverberates through his voice. Torie, his mistress, had told him of the place, having apparently visited while Arnould was away in the country.

He was the one who had suggested I should go to the Moon Goddess club, but I hadn’t told him upon whom precisely I have set my eye. “More so. As a matter of fact, once our position is secured, l will no doubt spend considerable time there”.

“My dear sister, we are attempting to deceive the Queen. Should the truth come out, they will have our heads. No. Once some blighter’s seed takes root, you can’t risk returning, can’t risk anyone figuring things out. You will retire to the country and live out your life as a grieving widow, much as the Queen has done since the death of our king. Sleep well”.

As though I will be able to sleep at all. He immediately strides from the room, before I have time to pick up my hairbrush and throw it at him with all my might.

Despair and anger threatens to swamp me. It had always been left to me to save the family. First with marriage, and now through sin.

Not in the mood to deal with anyone else, I do not send for my maid but simply see to my own needs. I finish removing the pins, brush out my hair, and braid it. With a great deal of effort, I manage to shed my clothing and slip into a soft flannel nightdress.

As I walk toward my bed, a profound sadness and loneliness strikes me. I glance over at the door that leads into the Alpha’s bedchamber. With a shuddering sigh, I open it and step over the threshold into the room where my husband had always slept when we were in the city.

On tiptoes, I credp toward the bed as though there would be hell to pay if I were

caught sneaking about in this room. On the nights when my husband had not come to my bed, I had never had the courage to slip into his, to come to him. I feel rather guilty that I had gone in search of another man earlier tonight. The action had been out of character for me, and yet Aaron Tempest had certainly given no hint that he had been put off by it.

Perhaps I should have gone to Serdal as well.

It is odd to be here now, but also soothing as I catch a wisp of his faint fragrance, lingering even though we had not been back to the city since we had attended the regatta last August. Climbing onto the bed, I curl onto my side and brings up my knees.

Running my tongue over my lips, I can still taste Aaron Tempest, dark, oak, smoky, whisky. I had no idea a man could taste so flavourful.

Why had Serdal never opened his mouth to me ? Why had he never made me feel as though he wanted to devour me ?

His kisses had always been so polite, so respectful, so gentlemanly. On our wedding night, he had even whispered; ‘I’m sorry’, in my ear before he worked his way into me. I had always thought he was apologizing for the pain he knew our initial coupling would cause me. But now I am left to wonder if he had harbored guilt because he had known our passion would always be cool and reserved, our coming together a perfunctory thing, a duty, a task.

He had commented often on my beauty. He had never made me feel as though he didn’t like me, and wasn't fond of me. But neither had he ever gazed upon me with the hunger Aaron Tempest had tonight.

Closing my eyes, I drift off into slumber and do exactly as the club owner had predicted: I welcome him into my dreams.