Fated for Her Wolves - Tara West Page 0,8
convince her that Katarina’s death wasn’t her fault, that their mother had been a wicked woman who’d chosen her own fate. Didn’t they realize the shrine they’d built to Katarina made her uncomfortable? Or maybe they didn’t care.
She waved at the walls. “This is too much,” she spat, her irritation with them rising.
“I thought you felt bad about killing my mother.”
She glared at him, not liking the judgment she saw in his eyes. Though her words sent Katarina running into the hunter’s crosshairs, she hadn’t directly killed Katarina. “I don’t belong here. I don’t belong with you.”
Spinning on her heel, she marched to the front door, alarmed when she saw it was cracked and splintered. They hadn’t done any repairs at all! They’d lied to her. When she tried to pry it open, it crumbled to the ground in a cloud of dust. Coughing, she fanned the air, gagging on the taste of sawdust. She cowered when she saw the dark forest outside, illuminated by a white veil of mist.
The Hoia Baciu, Romania’s haunted forest, was right outside their door!
She jumped when Dejan put a hand on her shoulder. “You can’t leave, Tatiana. It’s not safe.”
An ominous howl sounded in the distance, and three pairs of red, glowing eyes blinked at her from the darkness. She had a sinking feeling in her gut that Dejan’s brothers had fallen victim to the evil forest.
She turned to him. “Please tell me your brothers are safe.”
His large, luminous eyes welled with tears. “Tatiana, I’m sorry.”
Falling to her knees, she let out a strangled sob and clutched her throat. “No!”
TATIANA YELPED WHEN someone shook her hard. Her eyes flew open, and she looked into Arvid’s smiling face.
“Wake up, sweetheart,” her gamma father said. “The plane has landed.”
Curling into herself, she looked around while willing her rapid heart rate to subside. As her senses slowly returned, she told herself that it had only been a nightmare and her mates hadn’t been swallowed by the forest. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Get up, Tatiana,” Tor rumbled.
Arvid held a hand down to her, pity in his eyes. “Come on.”
She let him pull her to her feet. Outside the field beyond the tarmac was blanketed in snow. They had landed. She was in Romania. Soon she’d be reunited with the men she most feared and most desired. She didn’t think her battered heart could handle it.
TATIANA FELT AS IF she was marching to the beat of her own funeral as she followed her parents and Agent Johnson across the tarmac. Though this was supposedly an independent commercial air base, it was primarily used by the US military, one of the perks enjoyed by the Amaroki wolves in exchange for their service as a secret unit of the US Army. As a government liaison and friend to the Amaroki, Agent Johnson had been coordinating everything for years. After the agent’s niece was transformed into a shifter by the Ancients, Tatiana’s fathers had made Agent Johnson an honorary tribe member, giving him a bronze wolf pin, which he wore affixed to his lapel. Tatiana had always liked Agent Johnson and thought of him like an uncle. She supposed he would be sort of an uncle after she bonded with the Lupescus; his niece, Dr. Eilea Johnson, had mated with Tatiana’s future fathers-in-law and moved with them to Romania. Tatiana was thankful she would have Eilea to talk to if and when she bonded with the Lupescu brothers. The doctor might be the only person who understood her emotional turmoil.
Agent Johnson said his goodbyes, explaining he had business to attend to, but he’d be joining them in a few days. He hoped to be there when his niece gave birth to her second child. She’d heard from her fathers that he visited Romania often since Eilea had moved there, spoiling her son with toys and attention, trying to make up for being an absent uncle most of her life.
Tatiana’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the Lupescus waiting for her in the hangar. Though they were all still tall, blond, and devastatingly handsome, even from a distance, they had changed, not so much physically but internally. They were different than the sweet cubs who’d first courted her. She hadn’t seen them since they’d visited Alaska two years ago and had failed to take her back to Romania. Constantine, the head alpha, had filled out, his shoulders broader, his pale cheeks and brow tanned and glowing. He had the