by Marcy Jacks
He didn’t always howl when they made love. He usually only did it when the orgasm was particularly good.
He’d been howling a lot this week, and Davin was honest to God looking forward to the hand-shaped bruises he would be seeing on his waist when everything was said and done.
“Don’t stop. God, don’t stop.” Davin thought he would have a ways to go before he was able to feel the sweet release that he wanted, but no. He was already cresting that hill, and he wanted it. God, he wanted it so badly he could taste it.
And Mark didn’t stop. Like the real champion he was, he growled low and thrust forward, fucking into Davin as though he was still searching for his own orgasm.
And Davin loved it. The powerful force with which Mark thrust into him was almost too much. His body numbed to anything but the pleasure.
He found his body collapsing onto the cold countertop, but his chest heated that up a little faster than he’d expected, and then he was way too hot again.
That was all right. He was good with that. Fuck, this was nice.
Without touching himself, Davin felt the rush of his orgasm hit. He felt the sweet sensation of the release coming onto him, and Mark didn’t stop fucking into him even then.
No. Casanova behind him always seemed to know exactly when Davin’s body had finished. He kept going, though he didn’t thrust into him quite so quickly anymore.
No, this was more slow and leisurely. Mark pulled out the last of Davin’s pleasure like this, the last shiver from his body, the last desperate spike of pleasure.
Then Davin collapsed against the kitchen counter a second time.
It felt almost as though Mark had collapsed on top of him.
He loved the feel of Mark’s skin. He loved the feel of warm breath on the back of his neck and of Mark’s lips against his throat, his jaw, and the spot just beneath his ear.
Davin caught his breath. It seemed suddenly so loud in the kitchen and the only sound he could hear was his and Mark’s breath and nothing else.
Maybe he was just a little scared to say what he wanted to say out loud. To confirm it.
“Mark, I don’t want to leave.”
Mark hesitated. He pressed his mouth to Davin’s shoulder. “I know you don’t, baby.”
Davin frowned. He was pretty sure Mark hadn’t gotten that just now. “No, Mark, I meant I don’t want to leave.”
He looked back at the other man. Davin worried that his mate would think he was being wishy-washy about all of this.
If Mark did think that of him, then Davin couldn’t exactly blame him for it.
But he couldn’t tell exactly what Mark was thinking right now anyway. Not by the stunned look on his face.
But Davin definitely understood the giant smile on Mark’s face that appeared next and the golden look to his eyes.
The wolf was also there. It heard, and it understood. Mark kissed him. He kissed Davin like it was the first time. Not as though he thought this would be their last time.
And Davin loved that. He turned around in Mark’s arms, pressing himself against the other man’s sculpted chest.
The awkward air between them was gone. The sense that he was kissing a stranger, a man who was his mate in name only, was gone.
Now it was just the two of them, and Davin couldn’t have been happier.
Mark broke off the kiss. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Davin’s heart leapt. “Yeah, definitely.”
He couldn’t wait. This was what he wanted. He’d been waiting for something like this. For his mate to look at him, for them to really work on what they both wanted.
Not just sex, not just the fear that they couldn’t make it work even as a mated pair.
Davin wanted to feel like Mark’s lover and his mate again. He wanted that so badly for the both of them.
Mark grabbed Davin by the hand, his eyes glowing golden, his handsome smile showing off the whites of his fangs as he practically dragged Davin toward the stairs.
Mark’s hand barely touched the railing before he stopped short.
“What’s wrong?”
Davin listened carefully, and then he heard it. Mark’s cell phone was ringing back in the kitchen.
Mark clenched his jaw. “Whatever. I can ignore it.”
“No you can’t. Not if it’s your work or if Bodolf wants to see you about something.”
And considering the conversation Davin had with Bodolf earlier that day, he wouldn’t be all that shocked if that were the case.
Mark knew this. Davin could see the struggle in his eyes. He didn’t want to back away from this. He didn’t want to leave Davin alone so soon after they made such great progress.
But he had to.
Davin pushed himself up to his toes, squeezing Mark’s hand and pressing his mouth to the man’s cheek.
“Go do your thing. I’ll be here when you get back.”
Mark growled low in his chest. He looked at Davin then to the source of the noise from his phone before sighing, defeated.
“Someone had better be dying somewhere, I swear to God.”
Davin tried not to chuckle at that.
Since he wasn’t going to be taken by his mate upstairs again, he figured now was a good time to follow his mate back into the kitchen.
Until Mark came back from whatever it was that needed to be done, there was really no point in staying naked, was there?
Unlike Mark, who had no problem parading himself around in the nude as though it were an every-day thing.
The man was way too comfortable in his own skin for it to be normal.
Davin grabbed his jeans, shoving one leg and then the other into them, but his focus was on the perfection of Mark’s ass as Mark held the phone to his ear and listened to whoever was on the other side.
Yeah, maybe he didn’t mind it so much whenever Mark decided he needed to get in the nude.
Davin wanted to keep seeing the other man like that for the rest of their lives.
Mark, on the other hand, sounded beyond pissed off at everyone in the universe when he hung up the phone, cursed something so nasty Davin didn’t think he could ever repeat it, and then ran his hand through his hair.
Okay, what was going on?
“Mark? You all right?”
Mark looked back at him, and then he looked away. It was in his eyes. He was thinking. Davin could see this was serious. Whatever this was.
Davin tensed, a slow, creeping feeling working its way up his leg then into his spine and shoulders.
A cockroach crawling on him would have felt better than the sneaking suspicion he was working up in his head. “Mark?”
Mark looked at him, that sad expression back in his eyes.
“Get dressed, baby. I’m going to take you to Bodolf’s house. We might have a hunter problem coming our way.”
Chapter Nine
Davin didn’t know what to say to that. His worst nightmare was getting ready to come true.
The hunters were back.
Again.
They were like a parasite that just couldn’t be destroyed. They kept coming back. The men and women who wanted to keep on trying their luck after so many had failed before them would have been impressive if it also wasn’t so damned terrifying.
Mark was quick. He commanded Davin like an alpha that knew his mate wasn’t going to be able to make his own decisions for a while.
Davin used to call it his cop voice. All authority and “do what I say right now.”
Normally, that might be something of a huge turn-on.
Not so much when Davin was getting it because, otherwise, his brain wouldn’t function right.
He wanted to go up to his bed, hide under the blankets, and keep Mark here with him. He didn’t want Mark to leave him behind, and he didn’t want to be alone with the other omegas in Bodolf’s basement.
Kelly was going to get a real kick out of this. Davin couldn’t wait to hear her blame him for this new turn of events.
When Davin
was finally dressed and out the door, he finally managed to scrape together some brain cells to ask what the hell was going on.
“Are there a lot of them? Are they near the pack right now?”
Davin looked over Mark’s shoulder just in time to see Bodolf, Seamus, Cawley, and Flynn standing in front of his house.
As if they were getting ready to go hunting.
Or go to war.
So, yeah. This was probably bad.
Davin swallowed.
Mark immediately turned around, facing him, grabbing him by the shoulders and looking him in the eyes. “This won’t be bad. I’ll go out there, take care of whatever they want, and then come back for you. All right?”
“What if they want me?”
“They won’t get you. I promise. Okay? And when this is over with, when…if you decide to stay, then we can look into getting you a license to carry a weapon.”
Davin cringed. “I hate guns.”
“I know, sweetheart. But you don’t have claws.”
There was always that little weakness that came with being a human in a shifter’s world, after all.
“Hurry up, Marklavitz! We gotta move!” Cawley squawked.
Mark looked like he wanted to say something more. He looked honestly scared, and it made Davin scared.
How bad could it be that his own mate looked terrified to go out and confront the problem?
“Are you all leaving us alone?”
He noted the other omegas who were being walked to Bodolf’s home.
“No, most of the betas will be sticking around with the exception of the guys Bodolf takes for this sort of thing. Sigmund will be sticking around, though. You’re going to be all right.”
Mark took Davin by the back of the head and pulled him close. He pressed his forehead to Davin’s.
“I swear I’ll keep this promise.”
Davin clutched tightly to Mark’s leather jacket.
He didn’t care about anything else other than making sure his mate came back to him in one piece.
Mark released him, jogging over to his alpha, the two exchanging words before Bodolf kissed his own mate good-bye, shifted into his wolf form, and started to run.
The others with Bodolf followed suit. Mark hesitated briefly. He looked at Davin, smiled softly before letting the shift come over him, and then he ran after his alpha.
Off to keep the pack safe.
Dex adjusted his glasses, coming to stand next to Davin. He sounded miserable. “I guess the hunters heard we were here, huh?”
“We?”
Davin looked at the other man. Dex didn’t seem to notice what Davin had just said, and thank God for that because it was only then Davin recalled Dex was also a wolf soul. He would have the same amount of value to their hunting business as Davin did.
And he suddenly felt like the world’s biggest douche.
So caught up in his own drama that he’d forgotten there was someone else who lived in this pack, someone new, who had gone through a lot of what Davin had gone through.
Someone else who had to worry about a target being put on their back. Hell, Davin had hardly hung out with Dex since the other man had come here.
Considering how much others in the pack didn’t like wolf souls right about now, that had to be lonely for the other man. To be by himself all the time whenever Bodolf happened to be out and about.
Davin cleared his throat. “But our mates, they’ll, uh, take care of it, you know?”
Dex inhaled a deep breath. He somehow managed to smile at those words. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Dex looked at Davin while Sigmund and a few of the betas began the task of herding the omegas into Bodolf’s home. “I don’t know exactly what’s been going on with you and Marklavitz, but he seems really…nice.”
Davin smiled. “Yeah, he is. We’re…we’re working on it.”
“Is it because of the hunters?”
Had it been anyone else, at any other time, asking him these questions, Davin might have gotten offended by the prying questions.
Now, he just felt glad.
“That was some of it. Maybe…maybe half. No, actually, I’ll bump it up to about seventy-five percent of the reason was that. Another is…” He didn’t know if he should say this. He could poison the image off their pack, and it was a nice pack, for the rest of Dex’s stay here, and that was most likely going to be for life. He didn’t want that.
People were getting upset, and Kelly and her husband were peckerheads, but this was a nice pack to live in. Davin didn’t want to scare Dex away from that.
"It was a couple of different things. A little of it was that there are some people in this pack who don't like having me around. They don't like the risk."
That familiar shame welled up within Davin's chest. It hurt to think he'd let these people have such an effect on him. On his mating with Mark.
"I shouldn't have let them try to push me out."
And he wasn't going to. He knew better now. He was going to be stronger, and he wasn't going to take any more of Kelly's shit.
"I'm sorry all that happened to you," Dex said. "This must be kind of worrying."
Davin shook his head. "Don't be sorry. I don't want that. Just don't let the guys around here who don't approve of having us around determine whether or not you should stay. It's not their decision."
Dex smiled, and the emotion showed through his glasses. Davin could understand why Bodolf liked this man.
"I won't. Maybe we should go inside."
Davin had a look, and he could see Sigmund was nearly through with the lineup of people.
So Davin and his new friend went to join the others.
* * * *
Mark ran ahead of the pack. He could smell the gunpowder. The sweat. The leather and metal.
There were times when those smells came from hunters. Actual hunters who got their licenses to go out and bag a few deer.
These weren't those kinds of hunters.
These were barely even hunters in the shifter sense.
These motherfuckers wanted to take Mark's mate from him, to sell Davin to the highest bidder and force him to have sex with anyone who happened to demand it at the time.
It was sick.
Dick that the humans didn't know what to do with the problem, so they tended to ignore it until something massive happened.
Like the deaths of a lot of human hunters. The media loved eating that shit up.
Other times, there would be a few months when people would pretend to care if a lot of shifters were found dead or captured.
Mark wasn't waiting around for that. He was going to get these fuckers right now, and he didn't care if it looked bad to some asshole journalist that Mark wanted to kill the lot of them. Mark wasn't going to compromise where his mate was concerned. He didn't care if this cost him his career either.
He and Davin had just come to an agreement. Things were getting better with their relationship. It looked as though they were going to get better.
Davin said he didn't want to leave.
That got Mark the worst. His mate didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay, and of course, of fucking course, only minutes after Davin told Mark he was going to stay, this fucking happened.
So, yeah, Mark was getting ready to throw his career away and commit some good old-fashioned murder against the hunters to keep his mate safe.
Fuck the consequences.
Bodolf chased after him, as though he were in a race of some kind.
He called out, but Mark ignored him, practically blocking the other man out.
Mark could almost sense the confusion within Seamus and Cawley as they chased after him from behind.
Still didn't care. Mark had their scent. They were close. He was almost there. Bodolf yelled at him inside their heads that Mark needed to stop. He needed to think about what he was about to do. He was going to ruin their element of surprise, but Mark didn't stop. He wouldn't stop. He couldn't!
Until B
odolf bit down on his tail, that was. That was definitely enough to grab his attention.
And nearly yank his spine out from the ass end.
Mark yelped, a sharp-pitched whine he would never admit to making after today was over.
That hurt. That really fucking hurt, and the wolf didn't much like it either.
Mark lost control. For the first time in years, the wolf was in complete control over his mind and body. He couldn't hold it back, and considering the pain on his back end, he didn't want to.
The wolf turned, lunging at the other creature. He opened his jaws and went for Bodolf's neck. He clamped down hard, but he couldn't seem to get through the thick layer of fur between him and the throat he wanted to rip out.
Other wolves, wolves that were supposed to be his friends, surrounded him. He felt their presence, their confusion, and their anger. He knew they wanted to lunge, to fight him, but for now, they didn't.
They were waiting on word from their alpha. They waited until they were sure they could take him out.
The other alpha pushed its massive body back against Mark's. He struggled to hold it back. He did well, but it wasn't quite well enough.
This was his alpha. He shouldn't be fighting against his alpha.
But he wanted to. He wanted to rip the wolf's throat out and eat it in front of him while watching the life seep out of his eyes.
No! He didn't want to do that! He didn't want to hurt his own alpha. Bodolf would do everything in his power to make sure he incapacitated Mark any way.
If he managed to do that, which he was capable of, then Mark wouldn't be in a position to defend his mate.
He told this to the stupid wolf again and again. Being out of control after holding it back for so long, then not having to struggle so much when Davin came into his life, was a foreign concept to him.
And Bodolf was stronger than Mark was. Mark knew that right off the bat. There was no getting around it. It was the reason why Bodolf was still the alpha of their pack, even after all the years had gone by and all the challenges he'd faced.
He was the strongest man in the pack, and the only reason why Mark wasn't submitting on his belly right now was because Bodolf was holding back.