Tor moved silently across the room until he was standing directly behind Dawn. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight until she was against him. She breathed in his scent, locking it into her brain once more. Just his touch was enough to calm her heart. Make it relax the death grip it’d had on her ribs.
“Vraka Col, I mean no disrespect.” Knox stepped forward, putting Katherine somewhat behind him. “I have three of my pack who I cannot abandon. They do not at this time desire to live as men, but I cannot pledge my loyalty to a chief who would not consider them part of the Tribe as well should they choose that at a later time.”
A long sigh slid from Col’s chest. He looked down at his sleeping babies tucked in his arms and then over to Owen and Tara. “This choice is not just for me to make,” he said, his gravelly voice firm, but soft. He walked to Naomi’s side and turned to face the room again. “Kann and Penny are expecting. Others will have children soon I’m sure. This is a decision I think the Tribe should make together.”
Naomi put a hand on Col’s arm and looked up at him with pride and adoration.
“These men, err wolves you speak for, Knox. Would they want to be part of the Tribe?”
He nodded his head. “They are young. One barely out of his teens. They need the Tribe desperately. They need leadership, but they lost everything and everyone to choices that Raish made and then Tai manipulated the situation to be even worse. It will take them time to trust that you won’t burn them alive on first mistake.” Knox looked directly at Col. “To be honest. I fear the same thing.”
Dawn swallowed down a squeak. These men were talking like they would just be killed by Col for stepping out of line or disagreeing with him.
“Would he really do that?” she whispered to Tor.
“He is not wrong to fear me, little one. The men who threatened you. Who threatened my home. Who threatened this town. They are nothing more than ash at this moment. The same happened to a number of wolves who stole Tara and took her up the mountain and almost killed her. I showed no mercy to them either.” Col kissed one of the little fussing bundles in his arms and handed it down to Naomi. “You protected my mate. My children. My Tribe is your home now if you wish it. Your young wolves are welcome to live on our property where they can hunt safely, however I will need to meet them face to face so that I recognize their scent.” He gestured to Kann and the other men. “The others will as well if they agree to this arrangement.”
“I am willing,” Kann said, taking Penny’s hand.
“As am I,” Penny echoed.
“I am too,” Tara said, leaning into Owen’s side.
The big bear of a man slipped an arm around his tiny redheaded mate. “If my mate can forgive, then I can as well,” he said.
The groups’ collective gaze traveled to Saul, who stood by himself.
“If Knox vouches for these young wolves, then we should give them a chance. I will be forever grateful for the chance I was given when Kann and I found ourselves completely alone in this world with no one but a tiger for company.”
“Hey!” Tor said, his tone playfully annoyed. “You would’ve been bored out of your minds without me. That being said, I’m also grateful for the chance Vraka took on me. I would not deny anyone the same chance.”
“I know I’m not part of this group or really know anything about what sounds like a very complicated history, but Knox and Ryder put themselves between those men and made sure Naomi and I got down the hatch safely. Ryder’s wolf took a bullet that I’m sure would’ve killed either of us.”
Heat rolled from the big dragon chief. He walked toward the wolf shifter standing beside Ava and extended his arm, the one not holding two babies.
Ryder took Col’s hand in his, clasping forearms and leaned forward until his forehead touched Col’s.
“I am forever in your debt,” Col said, his voice soft.
“I give you my loyalty Vraka Col, for all my days as long as you care for all in your tribe equally. I will protect and serve.”
“I will care for you and yours as if they were my own,” Col said.
Dawn listened carefully. It was like a ritual, but not. A mix of old and new. These men came from a different life. A different world. One she couldn’t begin to imagine. This meeting of minds. Letting the wolves into the group was a big deal. That she could tell.
She had so many questions.
But mostly she really just wanted out of this bunker. A shower. And then she wanted to sleep. Preferably on top of Tor.
Col and Ryder stepped apart. Knox approached and he and Col repeated the same gestures with different words.
Then one of the babies broke the seriousness of the moment with an ear-splitting wail. All the adults laughed a little. Col tried to hand off the crying baby to Naomi, but she shook her head.
“Can we please get out of here?” Naomi asked. She held the baby in her arms up and Tara came and got it. “Give them to someone and help me get out of this bunker.”
Col stared at her like she’d asked him to cut off his hand.
Penny stepped forward and took both of the remaining newborns into her arms. “She just gave birth. Three times. Carry her up that ladder.”
It only took Col another second to realize what he was being told. He gathered Naomi into his arms and moved swiftly to the ladder.
“Who else is up there?” Tor asked.
“No one,” Kann said. “The sheriff put up yellow tape, but the fire is completely out. They had all left when we got back. We had to move a lot of debris to find the entrance. I don’t think anyone else knew this place existed.”
“They didn’t,” Katherine said.
Tor and Dawn hung back, waiting for the others to clear the hatch. Dawn leaned against his chest and he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head and hugged her like he couldn’t believe she was real. Like he just had to keep checking to make sure she was real.
“I was so scared that I lost you. When I saw the fire. The others could feel their mates, but we don’t have that yet. I know this has been a lot. I know we aren’t normal in your world, but Dawn—a”
She put a finger over his mouth to silence him, looked up into his sparkling blue and gold eyes. “I don’t want to be anywhere else. With anyone else. I want you. Whatever this is between us. I want it. I need it in a way I can’t explain.”
“Even knowing what I am?” he asked, his tone hesitant and worried.
“Even knowing you’re an enormous over-sized-prehistoric-tiger-like creature,” she said, giving him her best reassuring smile. “You know, I really like it when you purr.”
His chest rattled and then dropped into that low hum that made her entire body melt into a puddle. “Like that?”
She laid her head against his chest and sighed. “Mmmmm. Yes.”
“Come on, you two!” Ava’s voice cut through the silence, ending their moment alone. Dawn hadn’t even noticed that they had all left. They’d even carried Harrison up and out.
Tor cupped her face in his hands and stole a quick kiss before half carrying her over to the ladder and pushing her up ahead of him. She climbed in a haze, not really paying attention until she got to the top and Ava’s very strong arms grabbed her and lifted her clear of the opening.
Tor was right up behind her.
It was still dark outside. The sky twinkled with stars and the moon cast a soft glow on everyone’s faces. The babies were quiet. It was so peaceful and serene, except for the horrific mess lying around their feet.
The MCC had crumbled to ruins.
A couple of walls still stood, charred and black. The steel beams from the ceiling had fallen in clumps like a giant’s game of pick-up-sticks. The heavy crashing sounds while they’d been in the bunker had probably been those dropping.
Katherine fell to her knees a few yards away, breaking the silence with quiet sobs. Her mate laid an unconscious Harrison on the ground next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. The sobs continued and no o
ne spoke or moved.
Dawn didn’t know Katherine well. But she’d heard enough to know that this place had been important and had been the center of her life until Knox had come into it recently.
Kann walked over to Knox and Katherine. He lifted Harrison from the ground and returned to Penny’s side. Knox helped Katherine up and they followed. Tara and Owen were next, Tara with one baby and Owen with the other two.
“We need to go,” Tor said. It’s better if no one sees us out tonight.
Saul brought up the rear, sweeping his feet from side to side, walking backwards, erasing any trace of them having walked through the wreckage.
“Won’t they find the opening to the bunker?”
“At some point, yes,” Tor answered. “People died tonight. The deputy, Matthew. He went into the fire looking for you guys. He didn’t make it out. The men who are responsible for the fire are dead and gone. There’s no one to find. No one to blame. We need to lay low.”
Dawn nodded. It was like being in an action movie. One where there were multiple explosions and blood and bullets. The good guys had won this fight. Babies had been born. But good men had gotten hurt too. One had died.
The victory was bittersweet.
The deputy had been a kind man and had been friends with Tor. “I’m sorry your friend died,” she said, keeping her tone low.
“Thank you,” Tor answered, his voice strained and tight and raspy with the grief she knew he hadn’t yet acknowledged. “He was a good man.”
“I know he was,” she said, lacing her fingers with his as they walked through the empty parking lot and up the embankment to the road. Several pickups were parked along the shoulder and one older model 4Runner.
“Where are we going?” Dawn asked, sliding into a pickup with Tor in the driver’s seat.
“That’s up to you. We can go back to the cabin I share with Saul or back to your apartment above the bar. Hollister is gone. You’re safe wherever you’d like to be.”
“You’re staying with me, right?” Dawn said, watching the other vehicles drive away and disappear into the night.
“If it were my choice, shuarra, I would never leave your side.”
Dawn leaned over and grabbed the collar of Tor’s shirt, pulling his face to hers. “Mine,” she said, a little breathless and a little excited. Then pulled harder, pressing her lips to his and taking the kiss she’d needed since he left her in the MCC.
20
Dawn
Dawn didn’t remember the drive to the bar. She didn’t remember getting up the stairs to the apartment above the bar. She could only focus on the way Tor’s mouth crashed into hers and the way she just seemed to be floating in the happiness ocean of being with him. Touching him. Having him touch her.
For tonight they would forget the horrors that happened today.
For tonight it would just be them.
She gasped for a breath between kisses that felt as though he thought he might never get another chance. A man desperate for her. Something she’d never felt before.
She yanked up his t-shirt and scratched her short nails down his chest, across his nipples. He hissed and went for her shirt, barely getting the door to the apartment latched behind them.
He went for her jeans button and she went for his belt. There was fumbling and groans of impatience and Dawn could’ve sworn she heard him growl at her. Finally, their clothes were gone, lost somewhere in the darkness of the apartment.
Tor carried her the rest of the way to the bedroom. Moonlight filtered into the room the open curtains and he laid her in the center of the bed.
“Perfection.”
Heat raced to Dawn’s cheeks. Raced everywhere. Her ex had never complemented her body, only ever told her what she needed to do to look better. Pleasure blossomed in her chest and brought tears to her eyes.
“Will you bond with me tonight?” Dawn said, her voice filled with uncertainty. She knew what she was asking. At least she thought she did…and she wanted it. She wanted everything this man could give her. She wanted to give him all of herself, too. And she never thought she would want that with another man.
Tor crawled over her and kissed his way up her stomach. Shivers of excitement flitted like butterfly wings over her skin.
“Do you know what that means for us, shuarra. For me?”
She shook her head and watched him move closer. He laved one breast and nipple, working it until it turned to a hard peak and then the other. She was panting and her clit was throbbing, and she needed him so badly it was painful.
“A mate bond means a lifetime commitment. I am yours. You are mine. We will have a connection to each other that only death can break.”
“Do I glow for you?” Dawn asked, remembering what Ava had said.
Tor’s eyes flashed gold and then blue and then gold again. “Yes, so brightly it blinds me sometimes to anything else around me. All I can see is you. All I can feel is how much I need you.”
“I want you. I want the bond. I want what the others talked about. I’ve felt a connection with you that I’ve never felt before. I trust you not to hurt me, Tor, and that’s a lot coming from the relationship I did. I’d convinced myself there wasn’t a man out there that wouldn’t hurt me. And then you show up and throw a wrench in my carefully laid out self-commitment to abstinence.”
He nipped at one of her nipples and Dawn gasped, her pussy spasming involuntarily. “Tor,” she said, his name blending into a moan.
“I like my name on your lips, shuarra. I like seeing you lose yourself beneath me, and I will enjoy making you mine forever and every day after that.” He kissed her again and let his hips drag across hers, rubbing his hard length across her silky wet center.
She spread her legs and wrapped them around his hips, raising her body up to meet his, looking for more connection, inviting him to join their bodies.
“I need you, Dawn.”
She nodded and moaned and rocked her hips again. “Please, Tor,” she said, her voice trembling.
He pushed her legs forward, pressing the head of his cock to her entrance. He was big and wide and she wanted it so much she was shaking, but he was taking his time. Taking her slow.
He pushed in an inch and then stopped.
“Look at me, Dawn.”
She opened her eyes. She didn’t remember when she’d closed them. His eyes were blue again, she could tell even though it was dark in the room. The moonlight glistened on them and they looked almost silver.
He moved forward a little more and she gasped and tried to rock her hips closer, but he held her tight. Held her where he wanted her and that was even more powerful an aphrodisiac than had he taken her wildly with abandon.
“Tor,” she said, her tone morphing into something that sounded of desperation.
He slid in more and she gasped for breath. He was so much. And yet, she wanted more. Needed more. Knew he had more to give her.
Tor let her legs drop open and he lowered his body into the cradle of hers, hips to hips, he rocked hard, sinking deep inside and filling her completely.
There were no words for the deep all-encompassing pleasure that spiraled out from her core.
“Mine,” he growled burying his face in her neck, kissing and nipping. He wrapped his arms around her and drove in again, harder this time. “Mine.”
“Yours. All yours.”
She felt his teeth on the soft part of her shoulder where it curved into her neck. Then the pain came. A sharp prick and then a rush of something that burned. She clutched at his back and cried out. Her body clenched down and then she soared. The coiled energy releasing inside of her like an explosion. The pain dissipated and all she could feel was Tor.
Deep inside her. Filling her. Completing her in a way she’d never imagined possible.
The link between them snapped into place like a taut piano string, energy from both crisscrossing back and forth. She wished this moment could last forever. That the seconds could stretch to hours. That she could
stay suspended in this glorious moment with Tor longer.
He moved inside her driving harder, pushing her until a second wave rolled over her like the aftershock of an earthquake.
Tor came with her that time. His growl was muffled by her shoulder. He stiffened over her body and clutched her tight.
They lay together for a moment, panting before rolling apart.
The not-touching lasts for all of three seconds before Tor grabs her around the waist and pulls her still shuddering body against his chest.
“I feel…that was…” Dawn struggled for the right words. Wonderful or amazing didn’t do justice to how she felt right now. The connection to Tor was the most fascinating and overwhelming and even that didn’t seem like enough. And she missed him already.
What was wrong with her? She’d never craved or wanted more from Adam. If anything, she’d avoided being intimate with him. But with Tor, it was so different. She felt so much.
“I love you,” she said, the words slipping between her lips like a prayer. “I don’t know when it happened. I don’t understand it. We barely know each other. There are all these things and you’re…well…It’s all so much. But I love you and I just needed you to know that. And if that freaks you out, I understa—”
His mouth was on hers again, muting her words. His tongue swept between her lips, devouring her like she was the last meal he’d ever eat. Her neck throbbed from his bite and her sex ached and she wanted more.
“I love you, my shuarra. I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. Your soul called to mine and from that moment I was yours, completely.”
Tor kissed her again.
And again.
And again.
“I need you,” Dawn said against his lips. She wriggled her hips, rubbing against his very thick, very ready-to-go-again erection. “I feel empty.”
A loud purr rumbled from his chest and Dawn smiled, loving the way the vibrations rippled through her.
All's Were That Ends Were: Soulmate Shifters World (Soulmate Shifters in Mystery, Alaska Book 6) Page 17