He expected flirtation from the sultry princess. Her cunning eyes were gilded hooks that sought to ensnare any foolish lover forever; her lightly grinning, velvet-lipped mouth was a trap; her liquid words wove a net. Here reposed no shy maiden that sought favor with coy glances or tripping speech—this was a huntress, a creature who knew what she liked an understood precisely how to get it. Honestly, Kershov would have been floored if the crimson-stained stranger didn’t supplement some simmering spice to their conversation. Before she had even completed her first perfect sentence Kershov awaited the noose. The unspoken offer. That little quip or gesture that signaled the start of a delectable, dangerous game.

She smiled. There we go.

Kershov allowed himself to savor the dame’s enchanting voice, forgoing verbal replies so as not to interrupt her spell and instead reacting with interested obsidian eyes and an increasingly hungry grin. His ice-pale pelt prickled delectably under the femme fatale’s calculating gaze, as if charged with electricity. The alabaster Alpha had never been a wolf to hide his most visceral desires behind decorum and manners; he wanted this sinful blood-bathed sheila the same way he had wanted Queens not so long ago. He craved each word she breathed. Why construct a frosty front to trick the vampiress? If her intent had not been to seduce him, Ker doubted the she-beast would deign to waste her time here; the polar predator might as well act the gentleman and give the lady what she came for.

A lecherous growl throbbed at the back of Kershov’s throat when the dark lady finally stated her true purpose. He tilted his regal skull—raptor-like—before replying. “That is accurate: I require a sweetling marionette to act as Abendrot’s second Alpha for an undetermined length of time—a Puppet Queen, of sorts. While I do not doubt you take pleasure in having someone ‘pull your strings’ . . . I worry that you’ll end up pulling mine.”

A searing bolt of anticipation stabbed into Kershov’s core as the red-washed wolfess abruptly leaned in, long daggers gleaming in the cool moonlight. He thought she meant to bite him—and quite honestly he would have welcomed the strike—yet at the last second she effortlessly transitioned into a full submission pose: spine flat against the earth and creamy throat bared to the stars and Kershov’s devilish smile. She threw his own words back in his face, but even drenched in acidic sarcasm she sounded heavenly. Her elegantly sculpted cranium fit perfectly between his massive forepaws. His starving stare saw each curl of her pelt in stark detail, an artful tapestry of flawless ivory and warm russet blending together like blood and milk.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Kershov mused softly. A handsome quirk of one wolfish brow said otherwise. The only thing the vicious dragon would regret would be letting this majestic creature escape without a fight. Slowly, the frigid Pharaoh lowered his scarred muzzle until it rested on the fae’s silken brown. When he spoke, the hardness of his teeth ground carefully into the tender flesh between those tantalizing molten lanterns. “So, what am I to call my lovely little puppet?”