Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read Free Page B

Though human cuts and hairstyles never impacted her appearance as a wolf, Tiffany was a traditionalist. She wanted her life to unfold to reveal the exact fairy tales with which she had been raised, and marrying a prince was part of her plan. If that prince couldn’t be Shade, then she would settle for Soren.
    After all, they weren’t so very different. Each man had height nearing seven feet and the proportionally thick muscles to carry it off. Both were exceptionally handsome, though in different ways. Shade was dark, all planes and shadows. His black hair fell in shaggy waves to his collar. Black brows winged thickly lashed, midnight blue eyes. His oval face hid secrets that made more than one woman want to dig deeper, and his lips were full and lush enough to entice them, even when his manner was aloof. His skin was tanned, but not darkly so.
    Soren was light everywhere Shade was dark. Light blond locks covered his head, and sunlight glinted from the coarseness of the beard he periodically grew, then shaved away. His warm, friendly eyes were teal, standing out in startling contrast from his bronzed skin, inviting strangers close and friends closer. Where Shade was relentlessly serious, Soren always had a ready laugh.
    Tiffany had initially been attracted to Shade’s intensity. Not long after she established a relationship with him, she found herself attracted more to Soren’s joviality.
    “It isn’t what you think,” she said to Shade’s back. “Soren and I are…”
    He set a covered plate of something that smelled like steak on the counter. “Fucking?” he finished for her. “You have to know you aren’t the only one.”
    “No,” she conceded, “but I will be.”
    “Soren has yet to meet a woman who can hold his interest for more than a few weeks,” Shade said in his characteristically serious way. “And he has no interest in being a stepfather to your dozen children. Don’t get your hopes up.”
    “I don’t suppose you’ve decided to move home?” she asked. She sounded like she hoped the answer was in the negative. “You left me, Shade. You can’t expect me to wait for you forever.”
    Shade popped the plate in the microwave and ignored her tone. “I don’t expect you to wait at all, Tiff. I’m not coming back, not now, not ever. We’ve both made our decisions. I do not begrudge you a shot at becoming Soren’s mate. I’m only warning you that he isn’t looking for one.”
    “Thanks,” she said in a way that wasn’t thankful. “He’ll change his mind, and I’ll be here when he does.”
    Tiffany’s compulsion was to have children. She liked being pregnant, and she liked being a mother. Her youngest child was a full-grown adult, so she had successfully fought her compulsion for more than twenty years. Shade was about to advise her against holding her breath in waiting for his brother, but he stopped suddenly, scenting Soren’s presence.
    Soren entered the kitchen from the back door and surveyed the scene before him. With a wide grin, he said, “Don’t tell me the two of you have decided to reconcile? Moving to the middle of nowhere, Tiffany?”
    Face flaming, Tiffany glared and spun on her heel. The brothers shared a laugh at the slamming of the front door indicating Tiffany’s departure. In public, neither would be flippant with her. She was Captain of the Guard, and they afforded her that respect. But in private, she was the power-hungry woman who had seduced them both.
    Soren looked over Shade’s shoulder at the plate of food he lowered from the microwave. “That’s my dinner.”
    “There’s more in the fridge,” Shade said. “Did you have to be so mean to her?”
    Rolling his eyes, Soren snorted and went to the refrigerator for his dinner. “She offered, I took. I can’t help it if she thinks there was more to it or that I would ever choose her for a mate. I did make myself clear.”
    Sitting at the table with his meal and a large mug of home-brewed ale, Shade eyed