Forever Claimed

Chapter Two

Algar snuck a sideways glance at Kamryn while he drove toward the mall. She was even prettier than he'd remembered. He couldn't believe how lucky he'd been. He'd expected to be standing in the hotel lobby for a lot longer than he had before spotting her. He'd only been there an hour.

Hoping to get the conversation going again, he asked, "What part of the States are you from?"

Kamryn turned her head toward him. "Niagara Falls, New York."

He smiled. "The honeymoon capital of the world."

"Yes, and something I have a close, personal experience with."

Algar unconsciously gripped the steering wheel harder. "You're married?"

Kamryn chuckled. "No. I didn't mean it that way. I work as an assistant to a wedding planner. I deal with weddings and honeymoons on a regular basis."

"Oh." His death grip on the wheel relaxed. The thought of Kamryn being married or having been married made his wolf growl possessively. "I guess you get to make that special day something to remember for a lot of couples."

"Yeah, you could say that."

Algar shot her another look before he focused back on the road. "You don't like what you do?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kamryn shrug. "It isn't that I hate my job, it's just I don't enjoy it as much as I did at one time."

"Why not?"

"It's a stupid reason."

"You can tell me."

"It's really stupid. And you being a guy, you'll probably laugh."

Algar put his right hand over the left side of his chest. "I promise I won't laugh."

Kamryn sighed. "Fine. Seeing couple after couple get their happily ever after, I always planned to get mine before I hit the big three-oh. Since I'll turn thirty in a couple of months, it doesn't look as if that'll happen." She gave a nervous laugh. "See, stupid. I don't know why I told you."

He didn't miss the longing in Kamryn's voice while she spoke. She sounded as lonely as he felt. "It isn't stupid. There's nothing wrong with wanting to find that one person meant for you. Watching someone else find their mate while you have to sleep in an empty bed night after night, it gets to you."

Raed, former king of East Anglia, and leader of Tiw's warriors, had found his mate, Lexi, five months earlier. Already, they were expecting their first child. Algar didn't begrudge Raed the happiness he found with Lexi, but he had a hard time watching them together, especially since the warriors all lived together. It made Algar long to find his mate. But given his reactions to Kamryn, the aching need to be around her, and her ability to stir his wolf, the thought she could possibly be his had crossed his mind more than once since last night.

As he pulled the Jaguar into the mall parking lot, Algar took a quick glance at Kamryn and found her staring at him with a look of surprise. He'd obviously scored a point in his favor. After he parked the Jag and got out, he walked around to the passenger side and offered to help her out. He locked the doors with his remote and then took her hand in his, entwining their fingers.

When he started them guiding toward the mall entrance, he lifted their joined hands and asked, "Are you okay with this?"

Kamryn nodded, the tip of her tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip. Algar bit back a groan. Each time she did that, his cock jerked inside his jeans. He could almost picture how it would feel to have her tongue circling the head of his cock before she took him in her mouth.

"Good," he said, his voice husky. "Where do you want to shop first?"

"I don't know. I was just going to wander around until something caught my eye."

Algar held open the heavy glass door for Kamryn to walk through ahead of him.

"We can do that."

He gritted his teeth as he and Kamryn merged with the other shoppers. Being a Saturday, it was more than a little crowded. Originally a fifth century man, Algar wasn't comfortable around so many mortals. And given his sensitive werewolf hearing, crowds tended to scrape his nerves raw, but if being here meant he would be able to spend time with Kamryn, he was prepared to endure.

They walked past store after store, with Kamryn stopping every once in a while to window shop. It wasn't until they came across a store selling area souvenirs that she wanted to go inside. Algar released her hand and watched her look over the merchandise. She went to a table stacked with t-shirts that had the White Wolf emblem printed on the front.

The White Wolf was Tiw's mark. He'd also placed it on each of his warriors, on the cap of their left shoulder, done in black to mark them as his. The emblem was Anglo-Saxon in design and depicted the figure of a stylized man, Tiw, flanked on either side by two stylized wolves standing on their hind legs. A purse lid with that design had survived and been found at the Sutton Hoo ship burial, Raed's fake burial site.

Kamryn picked up a black t-shirt with the design done in white. She held it up to show him. "What do you think? Is this tourist enough?"

Knowing she would think it was a tattoo, Algar shrugged his left arm out of his leather jacket and pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt so she could see Tiw's mark. "I'd say I'm partial to it."

Her gaze skimmed over the mark and then moved back to his face. She smiled.

"I'll take that as a yes."

With the t-shirt draped over her arm, Kamryn turned away and moved to the next display table. Algar's gaze drifted down her slim body to her shapely backside.

The jeans she wore were snug enough to give him a well-defined view. The tips of his fingers itched where his claws would emerge as he thought about running them over Kamryn's naked butt, preferably while he sank his cock inside her pussy.

Algar realized how close he was to having his claws come out in a public place.

He forced back his wayward thoughts. If he wasn't careful, his eyes would go wolf as well, the hazel completely taking over the white. If that happened, he wouldn't be able to hide it as easily as he could his claws—more indicators that Kamryn, more than likely, was his mate. Lexi had had the same effect on Raed. Just as Algar was finding to be the case with Kamryn.

Algar focused his attention on Kamryn and had to clench his jaw to stop himself from growling when he saw her talking to a male sales clerk. The man hadn't touched her in any way, but Algar didn't like her around another male.

Algar moved to stand at her side, put a possessive arm around her shoulders, and brought her against his side. He interrupted the sales clerk mid-sentence. "She can find what she wants on her own. You can go help someone else." Algar added a hard stare to back up his words. The clerk left them alone.

Kamryn lifted her head to look at him. "He wasn't being pushy. He was just giving me some history about the Sutton Hoo ship burial. I told him I didn't know much about it. He also told me that was where the design on the t-shirt comes from."

"I could have told you that," Algar said in a gruff voice.

"Since you have it tattooed on your shoulder, I guess you could. The sales clerk was only trying to help."

"Well, he can save his helpfulness for someone else. Are you done here?"

Kamryn grinned. "I guess so. I'll just go pay for the shirt."

Once she moved out from under his arm, Algar followed closely behind her as she made her way over to the till. After she made her purchase, he ushered her out into the mall. "Let's get something to eat."

"Sure. I'm hungry. I'm still trying to adjust to the time here. I stayed up too late last night and slept in too long so I didn't eat breakfast."

"I know of a nice restaurant that isn't too far from here."

"Doesn't the mall have a food court?"

"Yes."

"Why don't we get something from there?"

"You want to eat at the food court?"

Kamryn chuckled. "There's nothing wrong with eating at a mall's food court.

Back home, I do it quite a bit."

"I've never eaten at the food court here, so I couldn't tell you if the food will be good or not."

"Then you don't know what you've been missing." She grabbed his arm and towed him over to one of the mall directories in the center of the wide walkway.

Kamryn ran her finger over it, as if learning the route to the food court.

When they reached it, a barrage of scents from all the different foods filled his nose. Algar didn't find it unpleasant and his stomach did rumble in response. He let Kamryn lead him to one of the few empty tables and then sat across from her. He looked around. Compared to the rest of the mall, this section appeared to be busiest.

The noise level from the many conversations taking place around them, the sound of children shouting and a baby crying, played havoc with his sensitive hearing. And it didn't help matters when a woman, arms loaded with purchases, walked behind his chair and smacked him in the back of the head with one of her shopping bags. He scowled after the mortal, who didn't even bother to stop and apologize.

The sound of Kamryn's laughter brought his attention back to her. "You don't look very comfortable. If you want, we can leave. Don't feel obligated to eat here because of me. I just thought this would be easier than driving to another place."

"I'll be all right. I'm just not one for crowds."

"Since this was my idea, I'll get us our food. You can stay here and save the table.

What would you like?"

Algar scanned the food places. There were quite a few varieties. "I'll have whatever you're having. Here, this should be enough." He pulled out his wallet and took out enough pound notes to cover both his and Kamryn's meals.

She shook her head. "It'll be my treat."

Taking her hand, he put the money in her palm and closed her fingers over it. "I insist. I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy. I won't let the woman I'm out with pay for our meals, and don't even suggest we go Dutch."

"All right, you win. I'm thinking of getting Indian."

"Sounds good."

Algar watched Kamryn head over to the place that sold Indian food. His gaze fell to the sway of her hips when she wove her way between and around the tables. The longer he spent with her the more he craved her. As soon as they finished eating, he would take her someplace not so crowded. Hopefully, she would invite him to her hotel room . . . because she made him hungry. And not for food.

Once she got in line, Kamryn looked over at the table where Algar sat. His gaze was locked on her. She smiled and turned away as the line inched forward, and still she felt him watching when she reached the front to place their orders. She barely stopped herself from smiling like a goof at the woman who worked behind the counter.

To say she was enjoying her time with Algar was an understatement. He had an easy way about him that made her feel comfortable. It usually took her a while to feel that way around a man she'd just met, but that wasn't the case with Algar. She definitely wanted to see where things would go with him today. He was obviously interested in her. His shooing off that sales clerk while he'd held her possessively against his side said as much. Algar hadn't liked the idea of her talking to another man.

Some women may not have liked his show of jealously, but Kamryn didn't mind at all.

For her, a little bit of jealous attentive behavior was better than complete indifference.

One guy she'd dated had been like that. She could have given another man a lap dance and he wouldn't have batted an eye.

Kamryn paid for the food, and, with tray in hand, made her way back to the table. Algar accepted the paper plate she handed him and waited until she had her food in front of her before he started to eat.

She watched him put the first forkful into his mouth. He chewed slowly then swallowed.

"Well? What do you think of your first taste of food court fare?" she asked.

He nodded. "Not bad. I haven't had a lot of Indian food, but this is pretty good, considering where it comes from."

Kamryn picked up her plastic fork. "See. I told you the food wouldn't be bad. It may be cheap and fast, but you can get a good meal."

Algar visibly cringed when a small child at one of the tables near them let out a loud shriek. "The only thing I would change would be the atmosphere."

"I suppose when you're not used to it the noise can be annoying."

"No offense, but I usually prefer to eat in a place that is quieter and a lot less crowded. One more shriek and my ears will start to bleed."

Kamryn couldn't hold back a laugh even though she had a feeling Algar was partly serious. His hearing must be a lot better than hers was if a child's shouts affected him that much. "Once we're done eating we can leave." A bit unsure how Algar would take her next suggestion, she looked down and pushed her food around on her plate.

"We can go back to my hotel room if you want. It'll be nice and quiet there."

When Algar didn't respond right away, Kamryn quickly stammered, "If . . . if you don't want to, I'll totally understand. I'm not asking you to sleep with me. I just thought it would be a good place to get to know each other better."

She looked up when he reached a large hand across the table and stilled hers from pushing around her food nervously. She lifted her head, her gaze meeting his, and she saw the hunger lurking behind his eyes. Her mouth went dry. His stare made her nipples tighten and caused an ache to pulse between her legs. Algar's nostrils flared when he took a deep breath and his hand tightened on hers. If anything, his gaze grew even more heated.

"Of course I want to go back to your hotel room," he said in a voice that had gotten deeper and huskier. "If you don't want to have sex, that's fine. But if you want to have sex, that's fine with me as well." Algar looked suggestively to her lips.

Kamryn bit the inside of her cheek to stop from moaning with want. Wetness pooled between her legs and she resisted the urge to squeeze them together to try and alleviate the ache pounding in time with her rapid heartbeat.

Things between her and Algar seemed to be moving fast, but Kamryn didn't want to slow it down. She had two weeks in England. Not much time to even think she could develop a serious relationship, but there was no reason she couldn't enjoy Algar while she had the opportunity. With the big three-oh creeping ever closer and with no other prospective relationship in sight, why couldn't she seize the moment Algar was offering and see where it would lead? She was a grown woman with needs like everyone else. And, God, did Algar stir those needs inside her. She'd be crazy to pass up the intimacy he seemed willing to give.

Now that she'd convinced herself, Kamryn said what she'd never had the courage to say to another man before. "Sex would be good, and the bed in my room is definitely big enough for the two of us."

Algar let out a low groan deep inside his throat and released her hand. "Eat.

Fast." He then proceeded to shovel his food into his mouth.