Filed to story: The Wolf Prince’s Fated Love
He opened the door to the closest one for me and didn’t let go of my hand until I was seated. When he did let go, it was to grab the seat belt, buckling me in himself.
“I can do that myself, you know. I’m a big girl,” I said with an extra dash of sass.
“You could do it yourself, or you could let me take care of you.” There wasn’t an ounce of joking in his voice. He was dead serious, and something about that had me resisting the urge to rub my thighs together with need.
His face was inches away from mine, and the tension between us was so heavy, it was a physical presence. All I had to do was lean in half an inch, and I knew it to my core that his lips would be on mine, and I would be getting something hot and heavy that was not french fries.
My stomach grumbled, and his eyes crinkled with his smile. “Come on, princess. I promised you french fries, and it’s time to deliver. I know the perfect place.” He lifted my hand one last time, pressing a kiss to the back of my knuckles that made me shudder.
It was giving medieval knight vibes, and it was working for me in a big way. Maybe it was the castle, maybe it was the stunningly green and untarnished countryside we were driving through, or maybe it was the fact that I had a real, live prince driving me, but for the first time in my life, I really did feel like a princess.
He turned on something upbeat in Romanian that I didn’t understand on the radio, and the silence between us was oddly comfortable as we drove the fifteen minutes or so off castle grounds and into the little village where more of Pack Caelestis lived and worked.
When he stopped, we were in front of a quaint-looking stone building, that simply said
Gustav’s on the front window in green lettering.
“Gustav’s? There isn’t a burger joint around here?” I asked, suddenly feeling nervous for no reason at all.
He scoffed, but I could tell he was poking fun and not upset. “Gustav is the man if you want a basket of hot fries. Trust me?”
The question was weightier than it should have been. But when I nodded, Gael grinned as if I’d just given him the best gift in the world and hopped out of the car. Before I could even finish unbuckling, he jogged around and opened my door for me, hand already extended to help me down. I turned and took it, stepping down onto cobblestone that looked like it’d been around for nearly as long as the castle. I might normally have made a sassy remark, but he was trying. I kept my remarks to myself and followed him toward the front door.
He held open the door for Gustav’s too, and the most delectable scents I’d ever experienced bathed me. It was fresh baked bread, roasting meat, and some sort of rich sauce or broth I couldn’t put my finger on. I was instantly starving, voracious for whatever the hell they served here.
To my surprise, the inside was packed, low lanterns mounted on the walls gilding the working-class men and women scattered around every table and booth. It looked like a painting, and in that moment, I wished I had an ounce of artistic skill to capture it.
Though without the divine smells, it could never be as perfect as this moment.
He held up two fingers in a gesture to someone-though there was no one waiting at a hostess stand that I could see-and then led me through the maze of occupied tables right to the bar across the back.
“Gael! And you’ve brought a lovely lady to meet me. I’m so lucky!” A barrel-chested man with a wide grin and a green apron greeted us. Before we’d even settled on our barstools, a plate of steaming bread tied in intricate knots was slid between us, and he was already reaching for the nearest beer tap.
“Hang on, my friend-just water for us tonight. Unless you’d like a soda?” Gael asked me.
“Water’s great, thank you,” I murmured, a little overawed by the personal attention.
“Water! That’s not how we do it at Gustav’s, you know.”
“I know, Gustav. I’m sorry! But…” Gael glanced around conspiratorially, then leaned forward and stage whispered, “My lovely companion is pregnant.”
My cheeks burned as the man arched a thick brown eyebrow the size of a caterpillar over twinkling eyes, but thankfully, he kept quiet as he reached over for two water glasses with a wide smile. When he filled them and spun back around to hand them to us along with a pair of menus, his scent hit me for the first time, and my jaw nearly dropped. But I managed to hold my surprise until he turned to serve another customer.
Holding up my menu as a shield, I ducked behind it and turned to Gael.
“He’s human? I thought everyone in the village was Kosta’s pack?” I whispered.
Gael grinned. “You assumed that everyone in the village was pack. But we’re sitting in a primarily human establishment right now, so if you could keep the glowing in check, that’d be for the best.” He gestured to my eyes.
I blinked, and I realized he was right. My eyes were glowing, my wolf reacting to Gael’s proximity and the surprise of being surrounded by humans. She’d been edgy ever since I got pregnant, and this was the first time I’d been surrounded by humans since I left my job back home at the gym. I blinked a few times until I felt her recede, and he gave me a wink of approval.
“Do you want anything besides fries? How hungry are you?” he asked as I glanced over the menu. There was no English on it at all, so I still had no idea what they served here besides bread.
“What’s good here? I could eat a horse right now,” I admitted, abandoning the laminated menu in favor of a roll.
Or the handsome, tempting, muscle-bound man sitting at my side. I’d love another taste of him.
The roll was safer, so I stuffed it in my mouth before I could say something I’d regret. It was slathered in some kind of garlic spread, and my eyes almost rolled back in my head from food-induced bliss.
“Everything’s good. I’ll order us a variety, if that’s okay?”
“Absolutely,” I mumbled around my mouthful of bread as Gustav stepped back up to the counter across from us.
“Are you ready, my friend?”
“Of course,” Gael said, then shot me a smile and switched flawlessly into fluid Romanian. Gustav took quick notes on a pad, then left us to enjoy our bread.
“So, I’d thought before that Romanian was your birth language, but that’s not true, is it?” I asked after I was done inhaling my second piece of bread.
Stick to safe topics, Leigh.
Do not let the hormones win.
“No, Spanish is my first language. English second, and Romanian is my third.”
“Wow,” I said, genuinely surprised. “Do you speak others, or…”
“I’m also fluent in Portuguese, and conversational in French. But that’s it.”
“I have never felt so American as I do in this exact moment. I speak English and a smattering of high school Spanish. Me llamo Leigh, y me gusta carteras rosas.”
He threw his head back and laughed, right as another server we hadn’t seen yet arrived with both arms loaded down with plates.