by T. S. Joyce
“What’s wrong?”
“I want a pup.” A feral snarl filled the room, and Link shook his head hard and backed away a couple of steps.
“What?”
“Wolf wants to breed. You don’t want one of my pups in you, Nicole. Have to be safe. Safe. Can’t hurt you. No girl lives.” A soft whine filled the air. “No girl baby lives, and I won’t be here to help you get through it. Won’t be here to help you raise a McCall boy. Mad. Don’t want him going mad on you. Don’t want you hurt. Don’t want to break your heart. Break you.”
Nicole stood frozen over the admissions he had forced past his throat. Another layer of hurt Link bore as if it was no weight at all, another tragedy in his life. “Do you want a baby? A son? You, not Wolf.”
Link winced and dragged his gaze from the floor. He nodded once. “Doesn’t matter, though. Not if I won’t be here to hold him.”
“We won’t have a baby. I’m on birth control.”
Link’s look of blatant relief hurt in ways she couldn’t understand. Their future would be short and lacking. There would be no chance at more than this time they had right now. No chance at a family with the man she was falling hard for, but that had always been part of the dream. She’d wanted a man who really saw her, a good father to their children, and who would show them the attention and love that she had failed to garner growing up in a cold home. No man had ever tempted her like Link had been doing from the second she’d laid eyes on him, but he couldn’t give her what she wanted, and she was failing him in the same way.
“I wish I could save you,” she admitted through tightening vocal chords.
Link smiled sadly as he cupped her marked cheek. “You already have.”
Those three words gutted her. She hadn’t done anything to lengthen his life. She was only giving him happiness at the end. Squeezing her eyes tightly closed against the pain in her middle, she swallowed down a heartbroken sound as he pressed his lips to hers. She slid her hands over the warm, smooth skin of his shoulders and hugged him tightly. The desperate passion to bed each other and be done with it had gone, as if they were two comets whose tails had crossed and burned too brightly for a moment. Now, Link was loving her. Adoring her. Drawing every emotion from her as he cupped the back of her head and kissed her gently.
Her fingers weren’t shaking anymore as she unfastened his jeans and pushed them down his hips. And as she knelt down and removed his clothes completely, he smiled down at her. It was just the barest curve of his lips, but she was entranced by it. She draped them into a pile on top of her own sweater on the wooden floorboards and smiled up at him as she unfastened the thin gold necklace she wore around her throat.
“You’re cold,” Link said with a slight frown at the goosebumps on her arms. He pulled down the thick blankets of his bed and held out his hand to help her up. But before he tucked her under there with him, he murmured, “Want to feel your skin against mine.”
And she understood because she craved the same. The warmth of a blanket would be artificial and unsatisfying, but the warmth from the man she adored would break her heart open. For a moment, she hesitated, scared, because this was it. If she and Link did this, it would change things between them. There would be no more pretending they could go on without each other. He felt too big, too essential now after everything he’d shared.
But if all she had was a short time with him…if all she had was right now while he was still in control of his mind, then it would have to be enough because her instincts said this would be one of the biggest moments of her life if only she was brave enough.
Link’s hands on her waist settled her completely, and his lips on hers banished any lingering fears. Nothing had ever felt this right before. She wasn’t displaced in Link’s den. Here, she felt more at home in her own skin than she ever had before. Alaska had started that change in her, and Link was completing it with every touch, every kiss, every adoring look at her face as if he didn’t see her mark at all, but instead, saw her soul.
Link pushed the waist of her pants down with steady hands, then unsnapped her bra in the back and pulled it from her arms. Cupping her full breast, he let off a shuddering sigh and eased back enough to drag his hungry gaze down her body. His lips curved up at the corners into a sexy smile. He’d shaved this morning, so she could see every angle of his sharp jaw, every curve of his feral, masculine, striking face. It was his eyes that held her, though. The color there had scared her at first, but now they drew her gaze. They didn’t trap her anymore, but caressed her instead. They dared her to engage instead of looking down at her feet like she’d done most of her life. She could see him as he searched her face. Beautiful Wolf to match his beautiful soul. His last name didn’t matter now. Maybe it would someday, when the word McCall would steal him from her, but here in the waning evening light that filtered through the window, he was just her Link. The link that had been missing from her disjointed life. Missing Link, not Weak Link as that awful man in town had called him.
Lifting up on tiptoes, she slid her arms around his neck and pressed her skin against his. And as he let off a long, relieved sigh, she rested her chin on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her inches off the ground. The growl in his chest wasn’t wild or accidental now. It was low and satisfied. More purr than threat. Link rested his cheek against hers and laid a peck on her neck, just below her ear. Crossing her ankles, she melted against him and allowed him to just hold her, to just be. Her chest felt funny. All fluttery and warmer than the rest of her body where it touched him.
His erection was hard against her belly, but that wasn’t the most important part of this intimacy. Not right now. Link was enjoying just touching her. He was allowing them a moment to savor this, and it was the sexiest foreplay she’d ever been a part of. With every second that passed, the heat in her middle grew hotter and deeper.
Link settled her onto the bed and climbed in over her, his eyes intent on hers. God, he was beautiful. Scarred, strong, his stomach and arms flexing as he lowered his body smoothly to hers. He pulled her knee up as he settled in the cradle of her thighs. Teasing her with the head of his cock, he slipped inside of her once before he slid farther down her body and brushed his lips against her throat. He smiled against her skin when she clutched the soft sheets and arched back against the mattress to be closer to him. His needy growl vibrated against her skin in response to her bowing against him. He drew the taut bud of her nipple into his mouth and sucked it gently until she was soaking between her legs. And then he gave the same attention to her other breast until her entire body tingled. Every touch of his fingertips sparked against her flesh like tiny electrical shocks, and every soft growl in his throat drove her wilder in her need for him to bury himself deeply inside of her. And when he clamped his teeth onto the soft skin near her belly button, just above her sex, she released the sheets and gripped his hair instead.
“Don’t want that. Not this time,” she panted out. “I want you.”
Link didn’t hesitate or ignore her request. Instead, he slid into her, his stomach flexing as he filled her.
“Nicole,” he growled out in a snarling voice, closing his eyes like the pleasure was too much.
“Link,” she whispered, gripping his neck. “Eyes on me this first time, and next time Wolf can have me.”
He angled his head, kissed her palm, then opened his eyes and held there as he moved within her. His powerful body flexed and tensed every time their hips met, and as he lowered his chest to hers and stroked the mark on her cheek, she fell completely for him. No fear, no trepidation, just jumping off the edge because Link wouldn’t hurt her. She could see his devotion in his beautiful, wild eyes.
As the pressure built in her middle, she threw her head back against the pillow and moaned with every stroke. His teeth brushed her throat, right over where her needy sounds came from, and he left them there. Maybe he liked her exposing her neck, or perhaps his animal got off on that. Whatever the reason, the secon
d his teeth touched her there, Link began to buck into her faster and harder. He gripped the back of her neck to save her from ramming into the wall as his powerful body worked her closer to release. He was so big, so thick, swelling and stony hard as he rammed into her with a satisfying slick sound. He’d done that. Made her this wet.
Blinding, floating sensation… She closed her eyes to the world and cried out his name as an orgasm blasted through her on explosive pulses, gripping him as he rammed into her and clamped his teeth harder against her tripping pulse. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t.
Warmth shot into her in throbbing bursts as a snarl filled Link’s throat. Over and over, he filled her until wetness trickled out between them. He released her neck and rested his forehead on hers as he slowed down and then pushed into her one last time.
The heat in her chest intensified, burning until it was uncomfortable. She gasped out when it became unbearable, and Link went rigid above her, hands too tight on her waist and the back of her neck.
“Fuck,” he ground out, closing his eyes as if he felt the pain, too.
And she saw it. Something luminescent radiated from her skin, lifting from her, pulsing with power as it poured into Link on a translucent stream. A moment and it was gone, as if she’d imagined it, but when she looked into Link’s eyes, she knew she wasn’t the only one who’d been affected. His eyes were wide, shocked, as though he’d never seen her before, and he slid out of her and scrambled backward, then crouched on the edge of the bed.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Astonished, she sat up and pressed her palms over her heart, but her skin didn’t feel hot on the outside. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Her limbs should’ve felt heavy or numb if she’d given him something of herself, but she felt fine. Whole. Energized even. The only remaining effect was that her chest still felt abnormally warm on the inside.
“You bound us.” Link shook his head back and forth, eyes wide. “You’re human. You can’t.” A long snarl left him. “Love her. I love you.” Link shook his head and held it in his hands as if he hurt. As if gripping it hard would keep him together. “I didn’t bite you! I was trying to protect you.” His voice went gravelly. “Can’t protect her from what’s coming. She’s ours now.” Link went white as a sheet. “Ours,” he repeated, his vacant eyes on the crumpled comforter. “We’ll hurt her.” Link looked at her with heartbreak etched into every facet of his face. “I’ll hurt you. You should leave. No. Get out of here. No. Stay away from me. Be okay.”
Fury pumped through her veins. She should leave? After that incredible moment they’d shared, she should stay away from him? She was almost watching him give up on himself and on her, and she hated it. “Stop it! I see you, Link. I see all of you. Fuck the curse, and fuck you waiting around to go mad and die. If I bound myself to you, or whatever it was that just happened, it was for a reason. I didn’t just find you to lose you.” She blasted off the bed and began dressing, rage shaking her hands and making her fumble with the clothes.
“You’re leaving.” He said it as though he expected nothing less, which made her even angrier.
“No, I’m not. Not like you think. I’m going home because you and Wolf need to have this argument without me here listening to you ruin a moment that meant everything to me!” Her shoulders sagged, and she blinked back the damned tears because she was not a crier. Never was, never would be. “It meant everything,” she repeated low.
She strode toward the coat rack at the front door.
“Don’t leave like this,” Link said from behind her.
She turned on him. “I’m in this now, and so are you, Lincoln.” Full first name—yeah, she was pissed. “Own your fucking last name. Own the wolf and the man. Own me! Spend every moment you can with me because I see the changes in you. I hear the way Wolf growled just now. It was less, it was softer, and twice it even sounded happy.”
“I have work,” he said with a frown. “Can’t spend every day—”
“I don’t give a shit about your excuses, Link. Avoiding me won’t erase either of our feelings.” She narrowed her eyes at him as an idea began to form. “But you’re right. You have a shit-ton of work to do. On Buck’s cabin. I’ll pay you to make up for the income you lose on the other jobs.”
“I don’t want your money—”
“I’m not asking, Link. I’m telling you I need you. I need you here with me and in control, not just for a day or a week. For good. Whatever happened between us…was big. Tell me you felt it, too.”
“Nicole,” he whispered, looking tortured.
“Tell me!”
“I can’t fix my curse!”
She shoved her arms into her jacket and opened the door. “No, but we can.” She arched her eyebrows and leveled him with a look. “We have to.”
She slammed the door behind her, but Link threw it open and followed her out, stopping on the edge of the porch as though the cold didn’t affect his bare skin at all. He didn’t even cross his arms over his chest to ward off the wind as he watched her get into her truck and rev the engine. She hit the gas, angry and scared for a future she couldn’t control any better than the weather. She’d meant what she’d said, though. They had to find a solution to the McCall curse because she couldn’t handle finally feeling like she belonged somewhere, with someone good, just to give up and let him accept his dark destiny.
And over the drone of her heater, she heard it. The first long, haunting note of Link’s lone howl. It was filled with sadness and heartbreak, and she gripped the steering wheel to resist the urge to turn around and hug the scruff of his neck, cry, and tell him everything was going to be okay when it wouldn’t.
She couldn’t fix the McCall curse.
Not alone.
Link had to make the decision to save himself.
Chapter Eight
Link paced in front of Vera and Tobias’s cabin. If he did this, it would be getting his hopes up again. It would mean setting himself up for the massive disappointment he’d endured when the cure fixed the Silver brothers’ hibernation issue, but couldn’t fix him.
He’d gone to a dark place and had only lifted above it when he’d met Nicole. Asking Vera for help could push him all the way into madness if she denied him.
The door opened and Vera leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest, a mix of sadness and relief swirling in her fox-gold eyes. “Tobias is out on delivery.”
“I’m not here to see your mate.”
Vera cuddled closer into the blanket she had draped around her shoulders. “Where have you been?”
Link twitched his head and hated himself for his weakness. “Spiraling.”
Her mouse brown hair lifted off her shoulders and whipped in the frigid breeze. “I’ve missed you. You’re my best friend, and you just bolted on me. On Elyse and Lena, too.”
Link made a ticking sound behind his teeth and closed his eyes. “Tobias and his brothers stay awake through winter now. You don’t need me anymore.”
“Bullshit. You think you were only protection for me? For Elyse and Lena?” Vera shook her head. “It was never about what you could do for us, Link. It was about being a part of this place, a part of us. You’ve wasted some of the time we have left together.”
“I have someone,” he blurted out.
Vera stood frozen like a statue, staring at him as though she’d never seen him before. “Who?”
“The one. Someone I shouldn’t have met so close to the end. She deserves better than what’s coming for her. She told me to get my shit together and own what’s happening.”
“I like her already.”
“Chhh,” Link said, hooking his hands on his hips and glaring off into the woods. “She doesn’t understand.”
Vera arched one delicate eyebrow. “Or she understands better than you.”
“Fuckin’ riddles,” he muttered. When his chest rattled with a snarl, he didn’t even stifle Wolf. He felt the same damned frustration
with the women in his life right now.
“Eustice McCall died when I tried to fix him—”
“Yeah, I know, Vera. I get it. You already said you couldn’t fix me. I don’t want to hear about his death.”
“Eustice died—”
“Vera!”
“You shut the fuck up, Lincoln McCall. You’ll listen to what I have to say because while you’ve been running and spiraling, I’ve been here working. Alone.”
“Working. You mean planning your wedding?”
Vera shook her head, her eyes never leaving him.
Link swallowed down the damned hope in his chest. “On deliveries with Tobias?”
Vera shook her head again.
“On me?”
Vera dipped her head. “I couldn’t cure Eustice. Couldn’t. He had nothing tying him to this world but me, and I wasn’t enough. He had no reason to get through the pain and land on the other side. He gave up. Hanged himself. I found him—fuck.” Vera whipped her hair out of her way and angled her face away, eyes still on him. “He was my best friend on Perl Island, Link, and I lost him in an awful way. And when I met you, I thought trying to cure you would mean that someday, I would find you the same way—dead on purpose. And I was scared. But you aren’t Eustice. You’re stronger. You’re good. And now you have someone to anchor you. Someone to fight for.”
“Can you fix me?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, “but I can try.”
Link huffed a harsh breath as he shook his head over and over in disbelief that he was going to do this. In disbelief that he was really going to get his hopes up again after everything he’d been through. He’d accepted his fate, and it hurt less. Hope was a destroyer for a doomed man like him.
But we have Nicole now.
Wolf was right.
Nicole had changed everything.
She’d burned his white flag of surrender and spat on the ashes.
“What do you need from me?” he asked low.
Vera lifted her chin, and a proud smile slowly stretched her face. “I need your blood.”