Page 26 of Fangs for the Memories (Budapest Bites #1)

T he mirror cracks under my hand.

I guess the store will have to add it to my bill. But if something didn’t give, I would have mated Grace where she stood, no ceremony, no niceties, just my cock and knot buried deep inside her.

I did not want her to escape me. This female belongs to me.

Catching up with Grace in two strides, I gently take her arm. “This way.”

“I need underwear…” She gives me a sharp look.

“And you will get it.” I steer her over to the personal shopping section, the one my mother always uses.

“Mr. Kóbor.” The well-dressed she-wolf at the entrance, with a name badge which reads Katya, looks me up and down with what could be considered a predatory gaze. “What a pleasure,” she adds.

“I have brought my mate…I mean Grace…to be fitted,” I respond in English, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the little human in my charge.

“I don’t need a personal shopper.” Grace glares at me. “I’m perfectly capable of spending your money on my own, kósónóm.” She smiles at the she-wolf.

The wolf looks between me and Grace, cocking her head on one side.

“I think what Mr. Kóbor means is he wants your choices presented to you…in private,” she says in halting English.

“Oh,” Grace says, this time with a sidelong glance at me. “I still don’t…”

“Come,” Katya says, beckoning to Grace.

I’m not sure who is more surprised when Grace follows, me or her, but we’re led into the spacious salon behind the entrance.

It’s a place I’ve had to come to many times, summoned by my mother while she sits surrounded by her entourage hanging on her every word.

“Sit.” Katya puts Grace on one of the couches. “What is it you want today…Grace?” She looks over at me and I swear she winks.

I toss myself on another overstuffed couch.

“She wants an entire wardrobe, for every occasion, including underwear. But the big kind,” I announce.

Katya looks between us again.

Grace rolls her eyes. “I happened to mention I prefer comfort over fashion, in the underwear department,” she says to Katya.

“Quite understandable,” Katya says. “Don’t we all?” she adds with a smile.

It’s not a predatory one. Either she does not see Grace as a threat or she is not prepared to challenge an alpha wolf.

“You will wait,” she says.

“Send in refreshments,” I call out as she turns to leave.

“Ferenc!” Grace hisses.

“Surely the point of this sort of shopping is the food?” I respond. “I’m hungry.”

“I take you to a few shops and you’re hungry.” Grace snorts.

“It was hardly a few.”

“You shouldn’t have come if you weren’t hard enough,” she says.

I narrow my eyes.

“You’re telling Ferenc Kóbor of the Pack Kóbor he needs to be stronger?” I growl.

“If you want to keep up with me, yes.” Grace holds my gaze, her mouth twitching at the corners, clearly thinking she’s safe in this space.

But I scented the arousal in the elevator. I scented her arousal when she woke next to me this morning.

Grace can pretend not to be interested, however, her body cannot lie to me. Neither can her eyes. She might be finding me amusing at the moment, yet there’s something else there. Something she wants to deny to herself.

My mate should never be denied anything.

Before I can pounce on her, there’s a rattle, and a slim young human male comes in with a tray.

He gives me the most terrified look I think I’ve ever seen on a human, the contents shaking so hard I half expect him to drop it, but he manages to put it down without incident and genuinely runs out of the salon.

“Nice to see you’re making friends,” Grace says, standing and walking over to the tray before she chuckles.

“I don’t need friends.” I attempt to look past her.

“Sandwich?” Grace turns around with a three tier tray in her hand, loaded with Budapest’s tiniest sandwiches. “Or cake?”

She lifts another set of tiers with a selection of torta which are, by their smell, from one of the best coffee houses in Budapest.

But also tiny.

I huff out a breath.

“Yes,” I say.

“Yes?”

“All of them. I don’t know what you’re going to eat.” I’m by her side in a single beat, causing her to release the cakes, which I catch easily “I know what I want to eat,” I rasp. “And it’ll be sweeter than anything here.”

Grace’s beautiful eyes widen, her pupils contracting. It’s as if she finally understands what this is between us and how it transcends both our pasts.

How it is now, and for the future. How she belongs to me, and I will have her, no matter what the cost.

“Here we are,” Katya trills, trooping into the salon with arms filled with clothes and a young human female pushing a rail full to the brim.

If she’s surprised by our position, she doesn’t show it.

“Now, where would you like to begin?”