Hungry Wolf - Aidy Award Page 0,11

head and his other hand between her legs. “Won't happen again.”

Tonight.

“Good. Then yes, walk me home. If anyone sneaks a peek they'll think we're going to my place to get it on.” She turned on her heel and headed down the sidewalk.

Aleksei followed after her like a puppy on a string. A puppy who was on high alert and examining every shadow for potential threats. Helena might know about his world, but no human outside of the ones who'd mated the wolves in the Troika pack knew the extent of the war.

Niko had ended most of the infighting when he became the Wolf Tzar. But there were still a few one-blood bastards out there that would love to take out a Troika Enforcer, or his mate. Just the thought of a one-blood getting anywhere near Helena had his wolf rising back up to the surface.

Mark her.

Claim her.

Mate her.

Grr.

Aleksei hurried to catch up to Helena and took her hand in his. “Just in case someone is watching us.”

That same zing went from her skin to his and he squeezed her hand tighter. Helena tipped her head to the side and the slyest of smiles turned the corner of her lips up at the edges. All that anger at him melted away and the sizzle between them was back.

Too bad he had to let that sizzle fizzle. Just a minute more. He knew he had to let her go, but she felt so damn good and he wasn't used to anything that made him feel...anything. He'd take it while he could.

Theirs wasn't a leisurely stroll up the walk. Even if this was a fake rendezvous, they were making it look like they were in a hurry to get to a bedroom. Was Helena doing that on purpose, was she that eager to get rid of him? Or could it be that she was genuinely anxious to take him home and into her bed?

They did have some serious chemistry between them. He knew why. She likely didn't. Humans didn't know about fated mates until they were pulled into the wolf world, like the Troika alphas' women had been.

Aleksei knew all about how human women thought. Helena wasn't the first one he'd been interested in. At the beginning of the pack wars he'd been getting down and dirty with a hot piece of human ass. But that's all she'd been to him. He'd never shared his true self with her, hadn't confided in her that he was a wolf-shifter.

Once he'd come back from the Crescent pack a broken man, that relationship had gone down the tubes real fast. If he couldn't tell her he was a wolf enforcer, he certainly couldn't turn to her in his darkest moments and admit that he'd been forced to watch silently as his alpha was politely poisoned.

Aleksei's stomach churned. He was one weak-ass enforcer who hadn't even been able to see through the treachery of a wolftress even as she tempted him with the same wolfsbane that killed Piotr Troika.

He wasn't fit to be with a human, he wasn't fit to be with a wolf. He surely wasn't fit to be with his one true mate.

The sun was setting now, and Helena's skin, hair, and eyes shimmered in the dusky evening. The moon wasn't yet full, but shone bright on the horizon. She was so fucking beautiful and that scared the living shit out of Aleksei. He was a fool for thinking he could be anywhere near her and not ruin her life like he had destroyed his own.

Helena turned her key in the lock and smiled over at him. “Do you want to—”

“I gotta go. I'll, uh, call you.” He bolted off her front step and into the nearest alleyway. His wolf howled in his mind, chastising him for leaving his mate alone and unprotected.

The second he was out of sight he let the wolf take over and his bones cracked, his muscles reshaped themselves, and his skin split as his fur burst out of him, busting right through the fancy clothes Selena had insisted he wear. His paws hit the dirty concrete and immediately turned back toward Helena's place.

It took all Aleksei’s will to overpower that innate instinct. It took truly admitting to himself, he would upend her life by claiming her. That was what it took to make his wolf realize that even being anywhere near her was putting her in danger.

Aleksei took off in a fast run toward the Reserve where he could run