Page 10 of The Blood Wolf

Thor would kill anyone who laid hands on her. It didn't matter how long he had to wait. He would be patient, and then one day, when he knew it wouldn't be led back to his Nicola, he would fucking murder them all.

"Where do you want me to start?" she said, bringing him out of his bloody thoughts.

Bjorn had put a large tray of food in front of them with mugs of mead and water. He had taken one look at the gleam in Thor's eyes and had made himself scarce. Bjorn was smart like that. He would make sure they weren't disturbed.

"I want you to eat," Thor said, taking his blood-laced mead and having a deep mouthful. He needed something to take the edge off. Every instinct he had was telling him to fight or to fuck. If he got any more turned on, his knot would flare up, and then he really would be fucked.

Nicola had declared that he was her mate, but she had no idea what she was getting into. The wargs were not built like other wolves, and the part of him that was vampire had a hunger all of its own.

Nicola selected fish and vegetables from the tray and placed them on the plate before her. "I feel like all I have done is eat and sleep for days."

"You needed to heal. I wasn't going to make demands on you until you were up to it. The wolves pushed the matter, or you would still be naked in my bed," Thor replied.

Nicola's cheeks turned a dusky pink under her golden skin. "I wondered whose bed I was in."

"I wasn't about to let you sleep where I couldn't guard you properly. It was the safest place," he explained. He wouldn't have been able to tolerate her in anyone else’s bed, that was for sure. Her scent was soaking into the sheets and mingling with his own. Just as it should be.

Nicola had a few more mouthfuls of food. "I really appreciate you taking me in. I didn't expect my wolf to bring me here of all places."

"She knows where her den is," Thor replied as casually as possible. He didn't want to scare her, but if he had his way, she would still be in his lap.

Nicola looked at her plate. "It is still dangerous for you. Under normal circumstances, we would be ostracised from both our peoples for accepting the bond. The wolves will see me as fair game if I ever step into their territory again. The last girl I knew who had a liaison with a vampire was killed by her pack leader."

Thor's hands balled into fists so his claws didn't spring free. "No one is going to harm you. Wolf or vampire. I'm already hated by both. Accepting the bond and becoming my mate will make you untouchable. That I can assure you."

Nicola looked up at him, her golden eyes wide. "IfI accept?"

"I already told you I'm not going to force you into anything," Thor said, the words bitter on his tongue. "I'm not only a wolf or a vampire. I'm warg too. I'm all three, yet none of them. It's not a simple wolf mating or if a vampire took a bride. You need to understand that I'm not..."

Thor stopped speaking because he didn't sound like himself. He was babbling like a panicked maiden. He had never felt the need to explain himself in his whole damn life. The world had tried to crush him, so he had gotten up and crushed it back. He wasn't ashamed of what he was. It was the first time he actually cared if he was about to be rejected.

"I don't think you're an abomination," Nicola said, putting down her fork.

"You haven't seen my warg form."

Her full lips twitched. "Is it like the wargs fromThe Lord of the Rings?"

Thor choked on his mead. "What? No. Gods, no."

"Then I suppose you will have to show me," Nicola replied. Her scent wasn't afraid. It was heady blackberry sweetness in his nose.

"How about you tell me why Kaleb wants to kill you, and in return, I will answer any questions you have about me?" Thorhad never offered such information to anyone before. If she was to accept him as her mate, then she needed the truth from him. The whole truth.

"I used to run the accounting books for the pack when my father was leading it," Nicola began and sipped her water. "After he died, I was slowly removed from my position and the task given to someone less competent. I've grown up being aware of undercurrents in the pack. It was a part of my training, and I knew something was happening that most of the pack had no idea about. Kaleb and his loyal mutts were up to something. I got suspicious, and when I realized they had forgotten to remove my access to their accounting software, I began to dig. Whatever the alpha does has repercussions for the pack, and I wasn't about to sit back and watch Kaleb destroy the lifetime of work my father put into making it secure."

"And what did you find?" Thor asked, toying with a piece of bread.

Nicola bit the inside of her cheek, and then it came out in a rush. "Without going into precise details that only someone in finance would understand? Lots of shell companies had been set up. One was laundering money through a charity run by Volso."

"I know about that. It was shut down months ago, and the wolf was imprisoned, last I heard," Thor said, remembering the cleaning house Ares Volso did when he took over as head of the family.

Nicola huffed out a laugh. "That wolf was left to Pack Law. He was from one of the smaller packs that Kaleb was taking over. He's not in prison. He's in Cyprus overseeing Kaleb's operation there."

"What operation exactly?"

"At first, I thought it was drugs," Nicola said and stabbed at a piece of fish with her fork. "I was so mad at the thought he would sully my family's pack with fucking drugs of all things, butit was worse. He's buying and trading guns and other weapons. Stockpiling them because he wants to start a war with the vampires. The drug link I followed was to make a poison that kills vampires, as well as silver bullets and blades and shrapnel bombs. He's making a lot of it. He was trying to undermine Volso with the laundering, but it was also to get closer access to the higher-up vampires."

Thor snorted in disgust. "He's an idiot to think he can war with the vampires and win."