Free NocC 023 - The Ancients 05 - Bonnie Vanak - Incubus Wolf - Harlequin 2012-09 by Nocturne Page B

head atop her head. He
kissed the golden locks, relishing the silk beneath his mouth. Then he leaped
off the table and dressed.
    She wiped furiously at the tears on her cheeks. “At least he’s
dead now and will never bother you. Belaramos, you bastard…”
    Alex stared in horror at the dead man.
    Then she looked up, and he realized she discovered the hidden
truth at last.
    *
    The dead man lying at Dominic’s feet was not a stranger
but her stepfather, Devin Edwards. The glamour had faded, revealing the harsh,
puffy face and the slight paunch that was always an affront to her stepfather’s
vanity.
    Shock pummeled her. It couldn’t be Edwards. He loved his power
too much as leader of her clan to give it all up for Alaska’s wilderness. She
stared at the man’s face. Scars marked every inch of his skin. Puckered,
twisted, they made him appear vicious and evil, even in death.
    “I don’t understand.” Alex looked up at Dominic. “How could he
have slipped past me like that? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
    “Two years ago, the Society hired a new director. He looked
into cases, like mine, that reeked of political injustice. He exonerated me,
restored my powers twice-fold, and privately told me I could punish Edwards for
framing me for a crime I did not commit… raping a virgin Fae.”
    Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “The director told me I could do
whatever I wished to make up for my years in prison. I just had to keep it
quiet. The director needed to be disavowed of the process because of politics.
He was new, and still weeding through bureaucratic red tape.”
    He opened his right hand. Power sang in the air as white fire
surrounded his hand. Dominic closed it, making a fist.
    “I’m much more powerful than you realize, Alexandra. I cursed
your stepfather for every hurt he inflicted on you. I did it for you. I didn’t
know what he had done to you, but I knew you were hurting.”
    “You marked him.” Wonder filled her at this man who had
fiercely defended her and gone to prison to protect her.
    “No,” he said quietly. “I only made him as ugly outside as he
is on the inside. The world would never see him again as handsome and charming,
but witness the darkness of his soul. If he ever experienced a true change of
heart, he would have regained his looks. It’s why he wanted my blood. No woman
would approach him. He was thrown out of your colony and the rival Fae king took
over. Edwards thought my blood would make him sexually appealing to women. He
came here to Alaska after the real Lord Belaramos died and assumed his identity.
He hid behind a lie.”
    She hugged herself, trying to deal. Lies surrounded her from
the moment she’d stepped into the trap. “The potion, he lied to me.”
    Dominic gentled his voice. “He used a spell to make you believe
you looked as you once did. But to others, it made your runes appear. It did
exactly the opposite of what you desired.”
    There was no magick cure, no potion to make her beautiful. It
was all a ruse.
    She’d been ugly from the moment he’d tossed the elixir on her
face. Yet Dominic and the pack knew what she looked like.
    And they treated her with respect.
    “You saw what I really looked like. And you didn’t run.” She
looked at Michael who nodded.
    “Because we saw inside you, Alexandra. We saw your heart,” he
said quietly.
    She’d always be ugly and repulsive to the world. Maybe. But not
among Dominic and his people.
    He cherished her, this wolf who’d gone to great lengths to make
her dearest dream come true.
    “Michael, burn him.” Dominic gestured to her stepfather. “I do
not want his blood tainting the earth.”
    Dominic led her upstairs, out into the clean, cold air. They
walked back to the lodge in silence. Inside the living room, he threw a blanket
over her shivering body, rubbed her to keep her warm.
    Then sitting on the couch, he took her hand, his fingers warm.
He opened his other palm, revealing the ugly scar on it. “I received