Vesper stuck her hands in her coat pocket, wishing she had brought gloves, when the wolf beside her reached over and took her left arm and looped it through his to bring her up closer against his heated body.
"I don't think your fiancé would appreciate you getting pneumonia from the cold the night before your wedding." Grigory muttered hoarsely as he began walking them in the opposite direction that he knew the angel had taken with his mate.
"I can't get sick, Grigory." Vesper looked up at him and gave him a soft smile, though she didn't mind the additional warmth as they stepped out into the wind that was blowing.
"I wish that was true for wolves. We have a tendency to remain very healthy, and then if we get sick, it almost always kills us." He told her as he lead her into the trees that surrounded her home.
"Is that one of the reasons you have so many children?" Vesper asked.
He nodded, his blue eyes looking around him for a moment before he decided on a path to take, "That's part of it. The other part is that we're just a bunch of lusty animals that like getting women pregnant."
"I don't think you're an animal, Grigory. I think werewolves are quite...exceptional." She squeezed his arm, amazed at how solid the muscles beneath his coat were.
He smiled a little down at her and nodded, "I'm similarly taken with comet moths."
She gave him a little frown and sighed gently, "Grigory. I am in love with Mr. Hughes."
He didn't respond, he just continued walking with her deeper into the woods before finally stopping beside a large tree trunk. Leaning back on it, he watched as she moved slightly so that she could face him as they spoke.
"I hate that you're in love with him." Grigory frowned at her, his chest rumbling a bit in the way she was aware that werewolves communicated.
"But I love him all the same. I'm not being held captive. I haven't been stuck here for some time. I could have left, and he would have let me, but I didn't want to go." She saw the emotions playing across the man's face and felt sad that she had hurt the werewolf like this, but she hadn't exactly asked him to care about her. The time that he'd been inside of her, that had been desperation on her part, she'd needed to be penetrated. But werewolves were just as susceptible to the heart as anyone else, she supposed.
"If you allowed me to claim you-."
Vesper stepped forward and put a hand up on his chest, "I won't ever do that."
He rumbled out a growl, "If you allowed me to claim you, you could live in a house, with a family, and not have a sex spa right down the road. You could have a normal life."
Vesper smiled sadly up at him, his face was a little red, he was laying it all out for her and she felt her gut tighten at how difficult that must have been, he was bonded in a pack with Anya, claiming her would lessen his bond with the light siren, and his whole pack would be aware of what he was saying to her.
She felt his hand reach up to surround hers, "I don't want to live in Anya's house among her lovers and her children. I want to live in my own home, with my own husband, my solitary husband."
"I could-."
"Grigory, you are a werewolf, part of a pack. I would never want to be the reason you were away from other wolves. I would hate myself for that. But that's not even why I'm saying no." She moved her other hand up so that he could cup them both, it was really cold outside.
"You don't love me." He frowned.
"I don't love you." She nodded very slowly, not stopping him when he wrapped his hands around her body.
"He's good to you?"
"He is very good to me. I am very happy." She assured him as he tucked her up against his body.
"He can't give to you what I can give you, Vesper." He kissed the top of her head, she could feel his lips settle against her scalp.
Vesper bent her head back and frowned up at him.
"What can't he give me?"
"Children, proper sex."
Vesper bit her lip and stepped back a little bit. For some reason she hadn't considered that everyone would know about Mr. Hughes not having a penis for so long, but she figured nonhumans had been around for so long it was probably hard to have secrets from anyone. But she had also not realized that most nonhumans were still under the belief that the angel was sexless, and he most definitely was not.
"Grigory, there is something that I think you should know." She said in a very soothing voice, knowing that the werewolf probably wasn't going to like what she had to say.
"You let him take your virginity unnaturally after you touched, didn't you?" His voice was low, barely audible over the rumble in his chest.
"He did take my virginity, which I freely gave him, but not unnaturally. It happened quite naturally, in fact, with his penis." She bit her lip as he stared down at her with a frown on his face.
"One of his fake cocks, tell me, which creature did he choose? Certainly not someone of my kind." The way the werewolf smirked at her for a second made the anger rise in Vesper's throat and she grabbed hold of his right arm and squeezed it, knowing she couldn't possibly hurt him.
"Grigory, don't do this. Don't make it hard like this, you're here as a guest to my wedding, not here to ruin it for me." She cautioned, trying to remind them both that this was the eve before her wedding, they should be celebrating.
"You're making a mistake with him." Grigory blurted and put his hands on the sides of her waist.
