Page 35 of Fangs for the Memories (Budapest Bites #1)

C an I style this out? Ferenc’s mother has caught us in bed together and somehow that’s resulted in her giving us her blessing?

I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to react when we walk through his apartment to the living area and she’s sitting at the end of the mahogany table, sipping a coffee.

I already feel my entire body starting to heat as Ferenc strolls across the room to her. As he approaches, she looks up, and a smile spreads over her face as she spots me.

“Reggeli!” she exclaims and pats the chair next to her.

“Angolul kérem,” Ferenc rumbles.

“? Angol? She is English?” His mother claps her hands with delight. “Come, little one, sit next to me, eat breakfast.” She looks me up and down. “You need feeding.”

I’m trying to work out if the last statement has lost something in translation, but her English is so good, it would appear not.

“Thanks,” I say, attempting to appear far more confident than I am as I approach her.

“Mother…” Ferenc says in a warning tone.

“She is your mate .” The woman turns on him. “She needs to be protected .” She hands me a plate. “I am Martá.”

“Grace.”

“Ah! Such an English name for such a pretty human,” she says, ushering me to the breakfast buffet.

I hear Ferenc growl under his breath, but if Martá does, she gives no indication, instead talking me through all the options available, emphasizing which ones are Hungarian and exclaiming loudly when I put them on my plate.

When I have a pile there’s no way I’m going to be able to finish, she lets me sit and pours out some coffee. Ferenc throws himself into the seat next to me (to my relief), with a plate almost as full as mine.

“I’m ravenous this morning,” he murmurs.

I blush. I don’t think I’ve ever blushed this much in this short a period of time. What the hell is Ferenc doing to me?

“Eat, eat,” Martá says, sitting back down with her coffee and presiding over the table.

“What do you want, mother?” Ferenc says between wolf-sized bites. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here because I was told my son was in trouble.”

“I am always in trouble. You’ll have to be more specific,” he responds.

“Missing shipments?”

“Have you been speaking with Max?” Ferenc growls. “He’s a liar, Mother, and he’s the one responsible for them being diverted, most likely into his pocket.”

Martá gasps in a display of theatrics which nearly sets me off into a fit of giggles.

“Max is a good boy.”

“Max is anything but a good boy. He’s a pain in my arse, and if I catch him, he is going to regret crossing me.” Ferenc growls, glaring at his mother over his food.

Her hands flutter around her coffee cup.

“It doesn’t matter, not now you’re mated .” She gives me an indulgent smile. “And I don’t have to deal with the likes of the Roka clan again.” She shudders.

Ferenc releases a huffing growl and goes back to his food, stabbing at a portion of sausage like it’s personally offended him.

I’m not sure what to make of him.

“What do you do in Budapest, dear?” Martá turns her attention to me.

“I’m not working here…I’m visiting.”

“How lucky for my son!” she exclaims.

“She was staying at the Géllert,” Ferenc rasps, giving his mother a pointed look.

“Of course she was.” The older she-wolf leans back in her chair, coffee in hand and a smile which is more cat than werewolf.

Ferenc glares at her but obviously decides anything he has to say is not worth the trouble.

“So, you came here to talk to me about missing shipments, when you’ve never cared about shipments in your entire life,” he says, pushing his empty plate away from him and spreading himself out in his chair in a display of manspreading which would be impressive even if he was a man.

“I came because I heard what happened,” Martá says in hushed tones. “The building.” Her eyes dart to me.

“Grace knows what happened.”

“And the truce with the vampires? Is it broken?” Martá says, her voice shaking.

Her long, elegant fingers slowly transform into dark claws.

“Not with the Király,” Ferenc says carefully. “Our truce holds. But there is a rogue vampire, one who wants to open the vault.”

Martá’s cup clatters to the floor. For a moment, the words hang between mother and son.

“What is the vault?” I fill the silence.

Martás eyes flick to me.

“I’m sorry, I know I should have paid more attention since you revealed yourselves to the world, but…I was busy,” I finish lamely.

“The vault is the reason we revealed ourselves to the world, the human world,” Ferenc says, earning him a sharp growl from his mother. “She needs to know,” he growls. “Grace is my mate, and that’s the one thing the vault has given to us.”

Martá drops her hands into her lap, defeated.

“The vault is a portal to the underworld. For eons, our kind, werewolves, vampires, gargoyles, ogres, dragons, even demons on the surface, were aware of it. We welcomed the ability to be able to use it as a way of escape, from humans, from each other. But then it began to rise.”

“It?”

“The ancient evil, known as ?rdog, or Satan.”

“Satan came out of the vault?”

“?rdog is not one single entity. It is a collection of evil which, if it got into the world, would bring about the end of days.”

“Oh, so nothing major then.” I give Ferenc a sharp look.

“The vault had to be closed, but humans had to be warned as not all of ?rdog has been returned. Collectively, the Monster Council felt it was better to reveal our existence and deal with it than allow the evil to roam unchecked.”

“What happened to it?” I ask, my mind boggled, not only by the existence of evil but of a Monster Council . “The parts of ?rdog which were still in the world.”

“The gargoyles did a great job of finding most of it, but not all,” Ferenc says. “Enough we could go back to doing what we all did.”

“Criminal activities?” I point out.

“Only criminal for humans.” Ferenc shrugs, unconcerned.

“So, for werewolves, anything goes?”

He hitches up a lip, revealing a sharp fang in a wicked smile which goes straight to my lady parts.

“As you put it,” he says, in his delicious rasping accent, “anything goes, kedves.”

I want to bristle, but knowing he’s screwing over someone like Mark, it goes some way to making me feel less concerned about Ferenc’s business.

“So,” Martá says brightly, “when are you having the claiming ceremony?”

“Mother!” Ferenc rumbles deep in his chest, brow furrowed in exasperation.

“What’s a claiming ceremony?” I ask innocently.