by J. L. Wilder
He resumed his human form and approached her slowly, carefully. She was staring up at him as if seeing him for the first time.
He was close enough to touch her now, and she wasn’t backing away.
“What was that?” she breathed.
He knew instinctively that she didn’t mean the shift she had seen. She had felt something. The bond between them had been forged from both sides. He didn’t know how that had happened, but he knew that it had.
“I imprinted on you,” he said. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t know that would happen.” He felt short of breath.
“Imprinted?”
She didn’t understand. He knew she didn’t understand. And he wanted to take his time, to explain it all to her, but the heat of his attraction to her was sudden and overwhelming. Conversation would have to wait.
He touched her carefully, acutely aware of the fact that his clothes were still on the ground, that a moment before, she had been on the verge of running back into the bar, away from him.
But she was moving toward him now, caught in the same tidal pull that he was feeling. She leaned into his touch, closed her eyes, inhaled sharply.
He pulled her close, careful not to force her, careful to let her pull back from him if that was what she wanted to do. She didn’t know what imprinting was, didn’t understand it. She didn’t know what it meant to be mated to him. He had to be careful.
But she was drawing him in like gravity, inescapably. He couldn’t resist her.
His hands came to rest on her waist, then slid down to her hips. Then he was lifting her off the ground, and as her legs wrapped around his waist, her lips met his in a crushing kiss.
If the scent of her had been overwhelming, the taste was intoxicating. He could hardly believe that she had been out there all this time, waiting to be found.
And she’s mine.
He braced her back against the rough brick of the bar’s exterior, his hands sliding down to hike the skirt of her dress up above her hips. She was moving against him, grinding thoughtlessly, as if she had completely forgotten her earlier resistance to him.
He pulled back and rested his forehead against hers so that he could look her in the eyes. He was hard, harder than he’d ever been, throbbing against her, feeling the heat of her, and he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
As if she had heard his unasked question, she nodded, her face pressed against his.
He reached between their bodies to guide his long shaft into her, feeling as he did how wet she was. She gasped and gave a little shudder when he was sheathed within her, her legs tightening around him, and she pulled his mouth back to hers, kissing him deeply.
Ozzy could have stayed in this moment forever, feeling the heat of her body wrap around his stone hard cock. And for several moments, neither of them moved. It was the closest to home Ozzy ever felt.
Then instinct took over, and he began to thrust into her slowly, deeply, overwhelmed with need. Pulling her hair back and kissing her all over with his tongue.
It occurred to him that anyone could have seen them. If anyone came out the back door of the bar or decided to walk down this alley from the main road, they would be seen. An older woman with a younger man.
He didn’t care.
He needed her more than he needed air.
He lowered his mouth to her nipple and sucked it between his lips. She gasped, her body undulating as she tried to ride him harder, to take him deeper, and he felt her tightening around him. He groaned against her, his hand finding her other breast and squeezing hard.
She grabbed his face and lifted him back to her lips, kissing him like he had never been kissed before as he fucked her. Ozzy got lost in the symmetry of it, his hips thrusting into her as his tongue ravaged her mouth, until he completely forgot that they were in a public place. Nothing mattered except her.
He felt her come, her thighs shaking against him, her cries of pleasure disappearing into his mouth. He gripped her hips and fucked her harder, needing, taking, losing himself in the strength of his desire.
She went limp in his arms, her head cradled against his shoulder, completely spent. And as he fucked her, Ozzy felt her lips seal against the side of his neck, kissing him gently, even in her exhaustion.
It was an attraction like nothing he had known before. Heat swept through his body, and then he was coming, thrusting deeply into her, wrenching small moans of pleasure from her body.
When they were finished, he set her down gently. She kept her arms around his neck as she found her balance in her high-heeled shoes.
“Oh my God,” she murmured.
“Was that all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“Neither have I,” he said.
“I don’t know where that came from. I wasn’t...I never thought...”
“I imprinted on you,” he told her.
“You said that,” she said. “But I don’t understand what it means.”
Ozzy grabbed his clothes and struggled into them quickly. Now that the moment was over, all he could think was that they shouldn't have done this here. The smell of it would be a beacon to anyone else who was hunting for the lost omega.
“I’ll explain everything," he said. “But do you trust me now?”
“I do," she admitted. "I don’t know why, but...everything feels different, somehow.”
“Then come with me,” he said. “We have to get out of the city while we still can.”
Chapter Six
NATALIE
The haze of Natalie’s attraction to Ozzy lasted until they had left town. Overwhelmed as she was by the sequence of events that had led up to this moment, and with his strong hand in hers, it was easy to simply allow herself to go along with him, to not question anything.
But as the lights of New York City began to fade into the distance behind them, as the darkness began to swallow them up, fear that was greater than the strange new connection she was feeling set in.
She stopped walking.
He let go of her hand at once, obviously sensing that she felt confined. But it did no good. He might not be holding her now, but he was still there, his massive body probably twice the size of hers, his muscles huge and intimidating.
And he turned himself into a wolf.
Though the night wasn’t cold, she shivered.
“Whoa.” Ozzy lurched forward and caught her by the arm. Not until he did so did she realize her legs had turned to jelly. He eased her down to sit on the ground. “Maybe we should stop for the night,” he said.
“Stop for the night?” She looked around. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.
“I don’t think you’re up to walking anymore,” he said, studying her face.
“When you said leaving town, I thought we’d be getting on a bus or something,” she said.
He shook his head. “I don’t have any money,” he said. “Unless you do?”
“All my money is back at the hotel.” She looked over her shoulder as if hoping that the path to her past would be revealed, as if she could step backward into the simpler life she’d known when she’d woken up that morning.
“We can’t go back to the hotel,” Ozzy said. “You get that, right?”
“I don’t get anything,” Natalie said. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
“Okay,” he said. “Can you hang here for a minute while I build us a fire? And then we’ll talk about all this.”
She nodded. There was a part of her that wanted to get up and run away, but where was she going to go? Even if she had wanted to find her way back to her hotel, she didn't think she could have.
So much for the Lister Prize, she thought, almost hysterically, and had to suppress a laugh. She wondered what the award sponsors would think tomorrow when she didn't show up.
Then again, what are they going to think when they find the hotel bartender unconscious in the room th
at was registered to me?
She couldn't worry about any of that right now. She had bigger, more complicated worries.
Ozzy moved about gathering tinder as if he had done it many times before. She watched as he arranged the kindling and lit the fire with a lighter from his pocket. Soon the flames were high and strong, and Natalie had to admit that having a fire did help her feel more relaxed. It warmed her and kept the darkness at bay, and it made their little patch of land feel something like a home.
Ozzy sat down, near her but not too near, so that they weren’t touching but would be able to reach out to one another if they wanted to. “Okay,” he said quietly.
Natalie didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how to respond to him. There was no precedent in her life for something like this.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Do you still trust me?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” She swallowed. “Tell me what you meant when you said you’d imprinted on me.” That was when everything had changed. That was when she’d started to look at him as an ally instead of an unknown quantity. And that sex they’d had in the alley behind the bar—that wasn’t the kind of thing Natalie had ever done before in her life. She was wet between the legs just thinking about it.
To her surprise, Ozzy looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know that I should be the one to tell you these things,” he admitted.
“You don’t think you're the one who should explain to me what’s going on between the two of us?” She was incredulous. “You’re the only one here.”
“No, I know,” he agreed. “It’s going to have to be me. It’s just that...well, the pack hierarchy is so complicated already, and me imprinting on you is only going to make it worse.”
“I don’t know what any of that means.”
“Okay,” he said. He took a deep breath, and she could sense him wondering where to begin. “Imprinting is what happens when a shifter senses his true mate.”
“Like falling in love?”
“That’s probably the closest human analog, but not really. It’s a biological phenomenon, not just an emotional one. You can probably feel it—a hunger for me, a need that has to be fulfilled. You felt that in the alley, right?”
She had. “It almost felt like what we did wasn’t optional. Like it was as necessary as breathing.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“But I’ve never...” She hesitated. Did she know him well enough to confide this?
Then she threw caution to the wind. How much better did she really want to know him? If what he said was true, if he had imprinted on her, they were already connected. There was no point in trying to keep things from him now.
“I’ve never had such a satisfying experience with a man,” she said. “I don’t know that it can’t be like that when two partners are really right for each other.”
"With a human man, you mean?”
“I don’t understand why you keep saying that,” she said. “Are you trying to tell me that you're not human?” She had been thinking of him as a human who could do a trick. Was he saying that wasn’t what he was at all?
She stared at him—muscular arms, blond hair that was fashionably cut, bright green eyes that seemed to pierce right through her. A tattoo that matched her own on his bicep.
She was attracted to him.
Yes, he’d turned into a wolf. But...but he was still a human really, wasn’t he?
“Of course I'm human,” he said. “It's just how we distinguish between shifters and non-shifters. It’s the same as how we would call a pure wolf who wasn’t a shifter an animal. I’m a bit of both.” He hesitated, then added, “So are you.”
“No.” She shook her head. Every bit of her mind was resisting this. “I’m not...what you are. I don’t turn into an animal. I never have.”
“Maybe not,” he agreed. “But that’s because you grew up in the human world, not knowing what you are. You had no one to guide you, to help you make your transition for the first time.” He allowed a smile to grace his face, and Natalie was struck anew by how handsome he was. “You’re actually really lucky,” he said. “Most young shifters can’t control their shifting. Even older ones have trouble. It’s a good thing you were born with such tight control, or you’d have been shifting in front of humans all this time.”
“You’re wrong,” Natalie said. “I can’t do what you did.” She was sure of what she was saying, and with that surety came a sudden jolt that was half relief and half—strangely—disappointment. Was it possible that there was a part of her that really wanted to belong to this strange new world?
“You can’t do it yet, maybe,” Ozzy said. “But you will. Trust me, Natalie. I couldn’t have imprinted on you if you weren’t a shifter. And you and I both know what we felt.”
“I don’t know anything,” she protested, shivering. “I know I was kidnapped, and now I’m in the middle of nowhere with some guy who claims he’s my mate—”
“Look at the tattoo on your wrist,” Ozzy said.
She did.
“You’ve had it all your life, haven’t you?” he pressed.
“What does that prove?”
“I told you,” he said. “It’s the mark of the Pacific Northwest Wolf Pack.”
“Wolf pack?”
“It’s just what we call our family,” he said. “We live as humans most of the time. We’re not like the kind of wolf pack you’re thinking of. We have a house out in Washington.” He hesitated. “That’s where I want to take you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t go to Washington,” she said. "I live in Ohio.”
“You can’t go back to your house,” he said. “For all we know, the Rocky Mountain Wolves have already traced your scent there. Or tracked you there some other way. It isn’t safe.”
“Who are they?” she asked.
“The man who tried to take you at the hotel was one of them,” Ozzy said. “Did you notice the tattoo on his neck?”
She nodded.
“Well, that’s their mark,” he said. “And if one of them has already tracked you down, more will definitely be coming. After that picture of you ran in that magazine...well, your name is out there. Everyone knows where you are now.”
“But why does anyone want me?” she asked. “Even if I am a...a shifter, like you said...I don’t have any information that can help your enemies against you or anything like that. I wouldn’t have even known about any of this if you hadn’t told me.”
“They want you for the same reason I came to find you,” Ozzy said. “You’re the omega of the Pacific Northwest Pack.”
“He called me that,” she said. “Omega. I didn’t know what he meant by it, but it seemed like it was an insult.”
“Probably it was,” Ozzy agreed. “Some people don’t respect omegas. The Rocky Mountain Wolves are definitely the type to see them as a tool to be used instead of an asset to be prized.”
“But what is an omega?” she asked.
“The omega is the most powerful female member of the pack,” Ozzy said. “Though some who don’t understand might view her as the weakest. Her power is in her ability to carry multiple babies at once, to help the pack grow quickly.”
“She’s—I’m—a breeder?”
"A mother,” Ozzy said. “And a wife, and a lover. That’s what the omega does. Having our omega back would help our pack become strong again, in a way it hasn't been in a long time. And that's why the Rocky Mountain Wolves want to find you first. They want to keep us weak, of course—but they probably also want to breed you to add strength to their own pack.”
A shudder passed through Natalie. "Is that what you want from me?” she asked. “To breed me?”
“I want to father your children,” Ozzy said. “But I would never use you against your will.”
She was quiet. This was why her husband had left her. She had been unable to conceive. Now Ozzy was telling her that her va
lue to his pack lay in her ability to do just that.
She didn’t dare tell him it might be hopeless.
After all, strange as all this was, she trusted Ozzy. She believed him when he said he wanted the best for her. And she believed that, if they had the chance, the Rocky Mountain Wolves would do terrible things to her.
She would stick with Ozzy as long as she could.
And there was more. Even though it was impossible to truly believe that she had a wolf within her, as he had demonstrated that he did, there were those dreams that she’d had since she was a kid. Those dreams in which she found herself running through a forest on powerful legs, her sharp sense of smell feeding her details about everything around her.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe there is a wolf in me.
“All right,” she told him. “I’ll come with you to Washington.”
He nodded, reached across the small gap between them, and took her hand.
The touch of his skin on hers was electric. Immediately, desire as powerful as what she had felt in the alley overwhelmed her again.
No. Not now. I need to make sure I’m in my right mind. Too much is changing too fast.
She pulled her hand away and curled up on the ground, allowing the warmth of the fire to soothe her as she fell asleep.
Chapter Seven
OZZY
They fell into a routine over the days that followed. Ozzy would wake up first in the morning and kick dirt over the embers of their fire. He would wake Natalie, and they would start walking, shaking out the kinks that had formed in their bodies after a night spent sleeping on the ground.
Ozzy would have loved to spend his nights in wolf form. It was so much more comfortable to sleep outside as an animal than it was as a man. But he couldn’t forget the way Natalie had looked at him when she’d seen him shift for the first time. She had been horrified. He knew that she would never get to sleep with him beside her in that form.
Which is a real shame, because we would both be much safer with a few teeth and claws on our side.
After walking for a while, they would begin to look for a water source. Or rather, Ozzy would look. Natalie didn’t seem to know much about survivalism, which he supposed he couldn’t blame her for. The need to survive in the wild had never come up in her life before.