by Kati Wilde
“You don’t need any,” I tell him breathlessly.
“I suppose I’ll go swimming, then.” He reaches me, tips my chin up with one long forefinger, lifting my gaze from the little bead of sweat slipping it’s way over a massive pectoral and up to his whiskey-brown eyes. “We still on for tonight?”
A date. Kind of. Because Carrie asked if I wanted to hang out with her and Kyle at the Silver Dollar tonight, and I asked Ethan if he wanted to come along, and he agreed on the condition that he could take me out to dinner first.
“Absolutely,” I say, and that answer pleases him as much as the first time I said it. He kisses me, long and slow, and suddenly the heat from the sun is just a cold, pale imitation of what’s coming off him.
He must think so, too. Against my lips, he murmurs, “We better get to that swimming hole before I fuck you right here in the dirt.”
My heart thudding, I nod and gesture to the tote bag slung over my shoulder. “I’ve got towels. We’ll take the four-wheeler.”
Which I drive, with Ethan straddling the seat behind me and his big hand down the front of my shorts. The pasture passes in a blur around us, the rushing sound of the river drowned out by the “You’re already so fucking wet for me, your pussy’s just soaking this dirty hot bikini” that he growls into my ear as his fingers tease my clit, breaking about every safety guideline that a person ought to be following on a quad bike.
As soon as we reach the bend in the river, I cut the engine and take his hand, leading him down to the water’s edge. God knows how many thousands of years of the river’s changing course carved out this perfect little pool on the inward side of the bend. The current on the outward side flows swiftly, but on this side it’s mostly just still water with a few gentle eddies to keep the pool clean and clear.
“It gets deep fast, and some of the rocks at the bottom are sharp,” I warn him, carefully picking my way down though the jagged stones and jutting boulders that line the bank of the river. A narrow dock acts like a short boardwalk at the swimming hole’s edge—built by Jonas and my father, who both got tired of repairing all of the inner tubes that my friends and I would accidentally puncture by putting the tubes down on the riverbank.
Now the dock serves as a place to lay out our towels and shed my shorts. Ethan’s got a bit more to take off, and as his first boot thunks to the dock’s wooden surface, I tell him, “You should know that the first rule of the swimming hole is—”
“We gotta swim naked?”
I refuse to laugh, narrowing my eyes at him. “No. It’s ‘Don’t get Makena’s hair wet.’ Unless—”
“But getting the rest of you wet is fair game, yeah?” His gaze drops hungrily to my bikini bottoms.
“Unless,” I continue, “It’s on a day when I’ll be washing it later anyway. And it is.”
Amusement dances in his eyes. “You’re saying I get to dunk you?”
“I’m saying you can try.”
“All right.” He unbuttons his jeans. “So what’s the second rule of the swimming hole?”
“That’s it. There’s just one rule. Other than that, it’s every man for himself.”
“Every man? Seeing as you’re a woman and I’m wolfkin, I’m thinking we need a new set of rules.”
“Such as?” But I’m not really listening because his erect cock just made its appearance and, one thing’s for sure, the cowboy is blessed.
So am I, every time I get that monster between my thighs.
“That ‘gotta swim naked’ rule, of course.”
I laugh. “You’ve got a one track mind.”
“So do you.” Once again, Ethan tips my gaze up to meet his, and my heart stutters as he aims his gorgeous grin down at me. “That water’s cold enough to numb my nuts, isn’t it?”
I nod solemnly. His poor dick. “Absolutely freezing.”
“All right, then,” he drawls, and I shriek out a laugh as he abruptly sweeps me up against his chest. Giggling, I cling to his neck, because if he’s about to toss me in then I’m pulling him in with me. “What do you figure the best way of getting into a girl’s swimming hole is? Easing in nice and slow…or plunging in deep and hard?”
Oh god. My thighs tense, squeezing tight together. “I’d say they both have pros and cons.”
“I don’t see any cons to either,” he counters—and leaps.
Another laughing shriek rips from me, then I close my mouth and eyes the second we hit. Icy water flashes over my skin, but we’re only under for a few seconds before I feel a powerful upward push, as if Ethan just kicked against the river bottom. Still held securely in his arms, I surface laughing and sputtering.
As soon as I’ve got air, he steals my breath again—his kiss hot and slow. Releasing my legs, he holds me against his chest with one strong arm wrapped around my waist. I hitch my thighs up over his hips and discover the river’s done nothing, absolutely nothing to numb him. The heat of his thick cock burns through the material of my bikini bottoms, his hardness an unbearable tease as we slowly rock together, as my body adjusts to the cold river until the water is no longer the reason I’m shivering.
Lifting his head, he rasps out a single word. “Condoms?”
“In the tote.”
With powerful strides, as if he’s not walking through deep water and across jagged rocks, he wades back to the dock. Easily lifting me up onto the sun-warmed boards, he follows me in a surge of cascading water. I grope blindly around inside the bag even as he pushes me back onto a towel, then spreads me open with a hand on each of my knees.
“That was a fucking stupid rule I suggested,” he says hoarsely. “Saying we ought to be naked when it’s even hotter if I just—”
—hooks his forefinger around the crotch of my bikini bottoms and tugs it roughly aside.
“Fuck, yeah,” he groans, just as my fumbling touch encounters what I’m so desperately seeking. “Gonna spend a long time playing hooky right here.”
This time he eases in nice and slow, with my thighs gripping his hips and his every kiss stealing my air. Arching beneath him, I try to hold onto it all—the cool droplets that shake loose from his hair, the hot sun against the back of my hands as I cling to his shoulders, the rhythmic lap of the dock against the water. But most of all, I try to hold onto Ethan. Onto the feel of him inside me—the thrust of his thick cock, the rumble of his voice saying how beautiful I am, the fire of his eyes that sears me from the inside out with the promise of everything he has to give.
But I just want him. Because I’ve gone so far under, I don’t know if I’ll ever surface again. I don’t know how fast I’ll drown when he’s gone.
At least he’s here now.
He gives a tortured groan and joins me as I shatter into pieces beneath him, then holds me as I slowly come back together—sprawled over his chest, my head pillowed on his broad shoulder, the sun hot against my back. This moment, this perfect moment, I should simply be happy.
Instead a splintered lump seems lodged in my throat. And—like always—Ethan seems to sense it.
“You worried about going into town tonight?” he asks quietly.
I wish I could lie and say yes. But the truth is, nothing that Kyle worried about has been a problem this week. I suspect the timing has something to do with it. In Fortune City, calling in sick for a few days during the first week of hunting season is practically a tradition. Now quite a few locals will get to collect their employment while they get a week off to go hunting. And any others should be mollified by how quickly everything seems to have been resolved. MDC has to pay a hefty fine, and they’ll be inspected more regularly from now on, but construction begins again on Monday.
On the home front, this is the first week that I haven’t been pestered and bombarded with offers to sell. A part of me wants to believe that Fauconnier’s given up—that the only reason he bought up Rudder’s place and went after Riverbend Ranch was because he realized the properties might be sitting on some lucrative mineral rights. But with the state bre
athing down his back, those mineral rights would be useless if he can’t extract them.
And maybe that’s exactly what happened. I hope that’s what has happened. But Fauconnier has a pattern now. He’ll pursue something he wants the legal way—such as applying for a mining permit. But if he doesn’t get it, he’ll take illegal steps. He already started with Charlie and my fences…and maybe by hiring someone else to slaughter my herd. We just don’t know what happened there yet.
But Ethan asked about going into town. “I’m not too worried,” I tell him.
“About MDC, then?”
“No.” That’s true, too. Mostly. “I figure that’ll resolve itself soon, one way or another. Either they’ve given up now that their mining operation is exposed or Fauconnier will make a big move to take the ranch and… Well. I’ll keep fighting him.”
His callused palm smooths down my back. “Yeah, we will.”
We. My chest tightens painfully. “What about the bearkin? How long until we think he’s given up?” Because it’s been two weeks now since my herd was slaughtered. And nothing out of the ordinary has happened since. “We don’t know that it had anything to do with my parents at all.”
“But maybe something to do with that mine.”
“Maybe. And maybe it breathed in so much tainted silver when it broke open the entrance that, after it killed my cows in a crazed frenzy, it stumbled out into the hills and died. Yet all the while, we’re waiting for it to come back and living in fear of another attack. How long do we do that?” My breath hitches a little. “Maybe my troubles are already over.”
Ethan’s silent for a moment. When he speaks, his voice has a ragged edge. “So you’re wondering when I’m taking off again.”
The splintered lump in my throat grows and sharpens. “Because you will.”
“Yeah.” That raw confirmation seems scraped from his chest. “Makena, if there was—”
“I know.” Eyes burning, I hide my face against his throat. “I know you have to go. They killed your family.”
“If it was just about getting justice for them…I don’t know if I’d go.”
Even as I’m trying to process that, he abruptly rolls so that we’re both on our sides facing each other, my head cushioned on his biceps and with Ethan looking straight into my eyes, his gaze tormented and grim. His big hand cups my face before I can hide again. “But it’s not just about justice. It’s no secret my parents had a son who survived. And I never changed my name, so I’m fairly easy to find. Maybe these hunters never did because I kept drifting, kept ahead of them. But if I settle down, if this organization ever looks for me, finds me here—I couldn’t bear bringing them to your door, Makena. And if it was a few years on, and we had kids… They’d be wolfkin just like me and in danger, too. I won’t risk it.”
Kids. He’s talking kids. Sheer longing rips through my chest. Ethan would be such a good father. Protective, attentive, playful.
So unexpectedly playful. When I first met Ethan, my overwhelming impression was that he was intense and a bit scary. He still is. But I can almost pinpoint the moment that he began showing his more playful side, too—it was when he first showed me his wolf skin. As if when he stopped concealing that, he stopped concealing the rest of himself, too. Because I don’t think that side of him is new. Some of what he’s told me about his family, about some of the things he and his brother used to do, makes me believe that playfulness was something else that was lost in the before and after of his family’s murders.
Since then, he’s been alone. Scary and intense. But now he’s not always so serious…and he’s talking about a family of his own.
I want that family. When he kissed me that first night, I longed for more then, too. I longed for someone to always kiss me like that. To have someone to come home to. The longing that’s tearing me apart now is so much deeper, so much sharper. Because I don’t just want somebody. I want Ethan—and it’s so easy to picture a future with him, with our children.
But he’s leaving soon. And I’m terrified that he’ll be hurt or killed.
I’m terrified he won’t come back.
His thumb sweeps over my cheekbone. “Makena,” he pleads hoarsely, “don’t cry—”
“I won’t.” I squeeze my eyes closed, holding back the tears through sheer will. A shuddering breath passes, then another before I manage to ask, “If my scent is pulling on you, will you even be able to go?”
“I’ll have to,” he says with grim determination. “Even if it kills me.”
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t come to that.” But that lump in my throat is choking me again. I roll onto my back, not quite leaving his embrace but unable to bear being face to face with him while I’m bleeding so much inside. “I have a theory about that scent, actually.”
“That it means we’re destined to be together?” he says in a lighter tone, as if trying to give me the distance I’m obviously seeking—yet I can still tell he’s serious. That he believes magic pulled me to him because we’re fated mates of some kind.
I agree that it’s probably magic, but doubt fate has anything to do with it. “I think it’s the rings. I wore them for eleven years. It might be that whatever magic bled into that silver also bled into me, and made me smell different.”
He growls a little, shaking his head. “Then you’d smell different to every one of the kin. And if that was true, every one of the kin who drove through Fortune City would have been trying to sniff you out.”
“You think that many drove through? There aren’t a whole lot of you.”
“And I’m just the one who got lucky?” His growl deepens, his eyes sparking gold and amber. “Every time I got a whiff of you, my instincts were roaring that you were perfect for me. Not just for anyone.”
“I don’t really like the thought of a bunch of random werewolves getting hot for me either, but…it makes sense.”
“How’s it make sense? You assume that some magic rope that tied up a wolf god is buried in your mine, and the magic that corrupted the silver coming out of it—magic that will kill me. So why would that same magic bleed into you, yet you give off a scent that tells me, ‘Here’s a woman who’ll be my whole damn world’? You ought to be giving off a scent that makes my instincts roar at me to run away.”
“But it doesn’t kill you. It binds you, and prevents you from wearing your wolf skin. And what you would call a scent that acts like a rope, pulling you in?”
“Pretty fucking amazing.”
Smiling faintly, I roll back to face him. “It’s also another way to bind you. It’s just a theory. But it makes sense to me. Especially because it doesn’t make your instincts tell you to run away. It actually fits the legend of Fenrir being tied.” I frown a little, my fingers tracing the matching expression on Ethan’s mouth. “It’s kind of a sad story, really. And horrible.”
His face softens. “Tell me.”
“Well, Odin and the other Norse gods bring Fenrir home with them when he’s just a cub. He’s got two siblings who are horrifying in their own ways, but the gods figure out what to do with them. Fenrir, though—they don’t know. Pretty much all of the gods are scared of him, and they all know that he’ll only get stronger as he gets bigger. And Odin has these visions where Fenrir kills him and basically brings about an apocalypse.”
“So that’s why they decide to bind him?”
“Yeah. But Fenrir’s not stupid. Because they kept asking him to pit his strength against thicker and thicker chains, but he keeps breaking them. So when they bring Gleipnir, and it’s just this fine gossamer thing, he’s suspicious. He’s like, ‘There’s a trick here and you guys are going to betray me.’ And they’re all, ‘No way, we wouldn’t do that.’ So Fenrir says, ‘Okay, I’ll do it if one of you puts your hand in my mouth. And if I can’t get free, I’m going to bite your hand off.’ So most of the gods were all, ‘Hahaha, no. I’m not sacrificing my hand.’”
“Most of them?”
I nod. “Because there’s one god
, Tyr, who had never been afraid of Fenrir. He played with him as a cub, fed him. And of all the gods, Tyr was the one that Fenrir considered a friend. So when Tyr steps up and puts his hand in Fenrir’s mouth…”
“The wolf believed that he wouldn’t be tricked. Not by his friend.”
“Yes. And he did bite off Tyr’s hand as soon as he realized the truth. But Tyr believed sacrificing his hand was worth saving the world.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“Maybe not. And really, Tyr didn’t exactly lie to Fenrir. He didn’t betray the bargain they made—”
“Just their friendship and the wolf’s trust,” Ethan says dryly.
“Right? And here’s the kicker—Fenrir is so pissed off, so angry, that’s when he vows to kill Odin and end the world. So the whole reason the gods decide to bind him is because Odin has these visions of Fenrir killing him. But the reason Fenrir decides to kill him is because the gods bind him.”
“Sounds like Fenrir got the shit end of the stick there.”
I laugh at that understatement. “Both ends of that stick were covered in shit. But Fenrir will kill Odin, someday. After he gets free, and during the end of the world.”
“Hold up.” Ethan’s eyes narrow. “Jonas is looking through that silver mine right now, hoping to find this Gleipnir. And you’re thinking that if Gleipnir is destroyed, all the corrupt magic in that silver will vanish, too. But are you telling me now that if we blow up this magical rope, we’ll free some wolf god and start an apocalypse?”
Giggling, I shake my head. “I doubt it. I was just pointing out that if the silver affected me, too, it makes sense that you wouldn’t necessarily distrust that scent. Because that whole story is more about trust and betrayal and sacrifice than it is about a gossamer rope.”