Master of Desire (Merlin's Legacy #6) - Angela Knight Page 0,15

him as if he was an apple. Knowing without a doubt they were going to kill him.

Until Helena. The thundering booms. His torturer’s head exploding, splattering his face in blood and brain and bone fragments. Helena landing amid the larger male werewolves, utterly fearless, as elegantly terrifying as a tigress as she fought.

Watching her transform into a beautiful woman had been oddly shocking. She looked so lush in human form, so utterly feminine in her gestures, in the tilt of her head. The curve of that full mouth. The fact she could turn into seven feet of death and fangs amazed him. He’d be dead now if it weren’t for her.

The need to do something for her drove him to dress in jeans and a Henley and tackle dinner. New York might be the takeout capital of the free world, but sometimes cooking calmed Conal down when nothing else could. After what he’d endured today, he needed the peaceful routine of preparing a meal.

He’d equipped his kitchen to accommodate his culinary hobby, and the equipment in it had been known to make Michelin-star chefs greener than their own broccoli. Besides enough rust-colored marble prep space to land a 737, there was a Thermador gas stove and all the stainless steel appliances that went with it.

“That is a ridiculous quantity of meat,” Essus said, watching Conal apply a dry rub to the thickest steak he’d found in the freezer. “There’s no way that girl is going to eat half a cow.”

“She turns into seven feet of werewolf. Do you have any idea how many calories she must burn?”

“Good point. And that’s aside from fighting Siobhan’s pack of mad curs. What are you going to serve to drink with it? I was thinking the 1841 Vueve Clicquot Bono gave you…”

“Es, that’s a $34,000 bottle of champagne.”

“You’re breathing, Conal.” The eagle’s voice dropped. “And this afternoon, I was afraid you were going to stop.”

Meeting his friend’s golden eyes, Conal felt his throat tighten. Essus, too, had come entirely too close to dying. “Yeah. The Vueve would be perfect.” He headed into the pantry where he kept the bottles he saved for a special occasion.

* * *

He served the meal in the smaller of the apartment’s two dining areas. The bronze crystal topped table sat on a framework of narrow brass strips that matched those of white leather bowl-shaped chairs. A low centerpiece of honey star blooms breathed a delicate sweetness into the air, calibrated for a sensitive werewolf nose. Crystal goblets held the Clicquot, as the heavy silver scraped discreetly against gold-rimmed white plates.

Conal hadn’t put this much thought into meal presentation in years, and that included pitches for corporate acquisition or schmoozing Donovan Foundation donors. This was a hell of a lot more important to him. And he wasn’t entirely sure why.

Essus sat on one of his padded perches opposite Conal’s chair, adding a splash of vibrant color to the restrained elegance. Periodically, he’d bend to his plate to snap up a bite of the steak Conal had cut in convenient strips.

Helena, meanwhile, tucked into her food so hungrily, Conal was glad he’d given her the larger of the three steaks. Her long fingers moved with grace and precision as she cut into the meat, and he watched with absorbed interest whenever she took a bite. Her eyes drifted closed in appreciation, and he shifted restlessly in his chair. Like him, she wore jeans, though she’d paired it with a black T-shirt with an image of a wolf silhouetted against a full moon. “Embrace the Wild Life” curved around the image, written in a swirling gold font.

Love to, Conal thought. Which was when he realized he was getting an erection. Oh, great. Let’s sexually harass the werewolf bodyguard. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Conal scooted his chair a little closer to the table and tried to think about third-quarter profits. Numbers usually did a fairly good job distracting him at such times, but she had the most delicious scent… Her gaze flicked up to meet his, and to his shock, arousal turned them gold. I’m not the only one turned on. Intriguing thought.

She looked down as her fork stabbed into the piece of meat, lifting it to lips that glistened under dark red lipstick. Her eyes looked huge and dark in her lovely, angular face, and her rich brown skin had a sheen like satin. As a human, she was a lean, athletic woman around five-ten. As a wolf, she’d towered over him,