by Viola Rivard
“Children, no. Pups? Yeah. This is the best place for them, Taylor. They’ll be able to be themselves and they’ll have parents that can teach them how to be humans and wolves.”
Chapter 4
Although Taylor napped with ease, laying down to sleep in the mornings was never easy. It was bad enough that her mind seemed determined to dredge up all of her worries and insecurities in the darkness. Worse still, her hips ached no matter which side she lay on and her belly was downright unwieldy.
This morning, she was ruminating over her earlier talk with Glenn. While it had alleviated some of her fears about raising children away from modern society, it had given her a new and rather selfish concern. When she envisioned her children, they were always sweet, tiny babies with chubby cheeks and big smiles. That was what she planned for, what she now wanted quite badly. Not a pair of puppies.
Sure, she liked puppies as much as the next person. They were soft, cuddly, and adorable. But she didn’t want to trade her little babies for a small animal that would bark, chew furniture, and collect fleas.
Look at the bright side, she thought. Housebreaking is a hell of a lot easier than potty training.
Taylor pushed aside a pang of sadness to smile. She would love them no matter what, she knew that much for certain. But a big part of her held out hope that at least one of the children preferred his human form.
The skin on the back of her neck prickled, signaling Hale’s arrival. Taylor lay still on the pallet and tried to keep her breathing slow and even. Each morning he came in to check on her, Hale never gave any indication that he knew she was awake, but she still wasn’t sure that she was fooling him. She knew that shifters could pick up on subtle changes in heartbeats, as well as perspiration, and no matter how cold the room was, Hale had a way of making her sweat.
Today, it wasn’t just sweat that plagued her. Her body tingled with anticipation, electricity skittering across her skin, inwards from her extremities and converging in the pit of her stomach where it became a caustic orb of excitement.
Why now?
She had craved Hale’s attention and affection for weeks, but it had been a while since she’d desired something more physical from him. Now, that long-forgotten ache was back with a vengeance.
A consummate predator, Hale’s feet made no sound as he walked from the doorway to the side of the bed of furs. Even so, Taylor was aware of each step he took. Her mate projected a charged energy of his own, one that she was intimately familiar with.
Her back was to him, but even so, he wouldn’t have been able to see that her eyes were open. They were deep underground, and without the aid of even the faintest light, he was just as blind as her. But when he crouched down, his hand didn’t fumble as it reached out to stroke her hair.
Her heart betrayed her as it began to hammer in her chest. He always just stared, sometimes for a few moments, sometimes for much longer, but he never touched her. She wished he hadn’t touched her. The way her body reacted, she would have thought her hair was made of nerve strands.
Maybe she was aggravated with her body’s reaction, or maybe it was Hale’s standoffishness that finally snapped her patience. In a movement so swift it would have made a shifter envious, she reached back and snatched Hale’s hand at the wrist. Though he made no effort to shake her off, she held in a vice grip.
For a moment, they both remained frozen in place. Taylor realized she had no idea what she wanted to say, nor did she know why she was gripping his wrist. She just knew that she didn’t want to let go.
There were a lot of things she could say. She could ask him a neutral question: What are you doing? Why are you here?
She could forgo questions altogether: Get out. Let me sleep. Don’t bother me again unless you’re ready to stop avoiding me and have a real discussion.
What she said instead came entirely out of left field.
“I love you.”
Before she could think too much into that, Taylor sat up and turned to face him. She could feel his warm breath on her face and could smell his sweat. Those were two aspects of an ordinary man that she would have never found appealing. But Hale was no ordinary man. He wasn’t a man at all. He was wolf, and his breath smelled like the hunt. His sweat smelled like summer rain, mixed with an irresistible male musk.
Her mouth found his in the darkness. His soft stubble pricked at her soft lips as she kissed him with unbridled need. Despite the passion of her kiss, the alpha remained unresponsive. Rather than upset or unnerve her, it only made her feel more determined.
“I love you,” she said again, this time murmuring the words across his lips.
When he still didn’t respond, she ran a hand down his chest. It was bare, and she raked her long fingernails across the rigid expanse of muscles. When her hand reached the junction of his pelvis, she felt him tense ever so slightly.
“I love you,” she repeated.
He wore a supple deerskin, tied loosely around his waist. She reached beneath it and grasped his cock. A wave of pride rushed through her when she found him fully erect. She gave him a hard squeeze and then deepened her kiss. A tremor ran through his body, but Hale otherwise remained stubbornly still.
The more he resisted her, the more it excited her. She put an arm around his neck and pulled herself into his lap. Her tongue delved into his mouth, while her teeth nipped at his firm lips. It was an odd feeling, to be completely in control of such a powerful male, knowing that he could seize that control back at any second.
Her hand began to move, pumping his stiff erection in slow, deliberate strokes. By the third stroke, Hale had begun to growl. At the fifth, his entire body trembled to the tempo of the deep, animalistic sound. She never made it to the sixth.
All at once, Hale was returning the kiss, and in brutal fashion. His hand went behind her head, pushing her face hard against his. His tongue thrust into her mouth over and over in a crude mockery of fucking. A careless fang cut the inside of her lip, and she tasted blood.
On reflex, her hands flew up to press against his chest. But as they came in contact with Hale’s hard, sweat-slickened muscles, her rebuff turned into encouragement. Finding one of his flat nipples, she grabbed onto it and pinched.
The alpha snarled into her mouth. His hands went to her hips and he deftly flipped her onto her knees. He maneuvered her much more roughly than she would have liked. She would have told him as much, but by the time she regained her sense of equilibrium, he was already positioning himself behind her.
More wolf than man, Hale kept one arm around her waist and the other braced on the ground while his hips gyrated against hers, his swollen cock seeking out her wet cleft. It didn’t take him long, and she let out a lilting moan as she felt his crown nudge against her entrance. In one efficient thrust, he buried himself inside of her.
It had been months since she’d been with either of her mates, and it felt as though he would tear her apart. But in a good way, a very good way. She’d forgotten how big he was, not just his manhood, but his entire body. His massive body dwarfed hers, and on her knees beneath him, she felt small and even a bit vulnerable. All of the control she’d felt earlier was gone, but she didn’t miss it. This was how it was with Hale—how it would always be with Hale. While he could be woefully inept at other aspects of their relationship, when it came to mating, he knew what he wanted and he was always in command.
His thrusts were far from gentle, but she knew that he was holding back at least a little. Even his wolf recognized that she wasn’t in any condition to be manhandled. She still had trouble matching his pace, and eventually gave up, allowing him to take charge completely. For some reason, her surrender seemed to please him and his movements became more fervent. He began growling again, though it lacked the even cadence of his previous sounds. After a moment, she realized he was speaking to her.
“Mine,” he growled. “Say it. Mine. Say it.”
Her body started to shake uncontrollably. She tried to pretend like she couldn’t understand him,
but the words became more demanding with each repetition. Tears pricked at her eyes, even as her pleasure mounted. For once, she found herself trying to fight her climax. She was afraid that the rush of ecstasy might make her say something she would later regret. But as she reached her peak, so did Hale, and whatever words she said were drowned out by his harsh snarl.
His release lasted much longer than usual, evoking memories of the mating thrall. During their week of ritualistic mating, Hale would hold her close, his claws digging into her hips as he pulsed inside of her over and over, filling her with his seed. Sometimes he would hold her like that long after he spent himself. When his brother would come close, Hale would let out a growl that both chilled and excited her. It was a sound that had promised violence and blood.
Hale rolled onto his side, bringing her with him. She half expected him to get up and leave without another word. Instead, he lay beside her, his soft panting rustling the hair at the top of her head. She almost wished he had left. It would have been easier.
“I miss Alder so much. Every time I lay down to sleep, I wish he were here instead of you,” she said. “You’re constantly pissing me off. Sometimes I want to scream at you. Sometimes I want to hit you. You’re so inconsistent and it drives me insane, and sometimes I really, really hate you.”
Hale said nothing.
Her eyes began to burn. “And that’s why I know that I love you more than him. Because he can be gone for two months and it makes me cry, but you can ignore me for a day and I start planning out your murder.
“I love you more than him. I have for a very long time. Almost since the beginning.”
Hale turned her onto her back. She almost thought she could see his face looming over his, and she wondered which expression he wore. Pride? Confusion? Disgust?
“Alder deserves better than you,” he said, his tone perfectly neutral.
“You’re right,” she whispered.
“But I don’t,” he said. “And that’s why we belong together. That’s why I should be your only mate.”
Tears rolled freely down her cheeks now.
“I know,” she said, knowing full well that she was too selfish to ever let either brother go.
Chapter 5
Hale didn’t speak to her again, unless it was while he was fucking her. Although they maintained their distance during the nights—something Taylor was quite grateful for after her confession—he came to her each morning, his body bristling with sexual energy.
The sex was incredible. It always was with Hale. But the real reason she never turned him away was what came after the sex. When it was over, Hale would hold her in his arms, and for the few hours while they dozed, the distance between them was gone.
She recognized that their relationship had become twisted and perhaps even unhealthy. They were trapped in a cycle of emotional abuse, both actively ignoring one another by night, having rough, angry sex in the morning, and then spending their days wrapped in an intimate, loving embrace.
Rinse. Repeat.
The problem wasn’t just that Taylor didn’t know how to break the cycle. She also didn’t want to. For the first time, she wasn’t eagerly awaiting Alder’s return. Not because she didn’t miss him so much it hurt, but because when he came back, this whole thing was bound to blow up in their faces.
As if by sheer force of her will, Alder still hadn’t returned at the end of winter. She wasn’t too worried. He had said that if the winter was bad—and it had been—that he would wait out the snow at his brother’s den.
The weather turned from bitter cold to hot and humid in less than a week. Over the course of three days, the massive accumulation of snow had melted, flooding the valley. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Taylor awoke on the first day of April to find the territory in the grip of thunderstorm.
“Holy fuck,” Holly said.
Taylor silently agreed. The two of them stood at the mouth of the cave, only inches from a cascade of water. Through the water, they could just barely make out the valley below. The lakes, which had merged into one big lake the day before, now swelled into the forest. The valley was so flooded that she could only barely make out the tin rooftop of her cabin.
“Don’t worry,” Holly said, giving her an awkward pat on the back. “That thing has flooded so many times, it’ll be fine. I mean, all of your stuff is definitely destroyed, and the cabin will smell like mold for at least a few months, but it’ll be fine.”
Taylor brushed her hand away. “Thanks. That’s very reassuring.”
“No problem.”
“Has the valley ever flooded like this before?”
Holly chewed on her red-lacquered lip. “Not in my lifetime. My mom said it flooded all the way up to the mouth of the den once, but she was always making stupid shit like that up.”
They stood and made idle conversation, until Lark and Glenn stumbled into the den, completely drenched. When he saw Taylor, Glenn brushed his shaggy hair back, water splattering onto the stone floor.
“Hale wants you in the lower chambers,” he informed her.
“Good evening to you, too,” Taylor said, her voice flat.
Glenn had the grace to blush. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“We had to clean the game ourselves,” Lark said, dropping a large bundle onto the floor. It landed with a wet, squishy sound. “The others had to go to the Whiteriver den. They’re helping them evacuate.”
Holly frowned. “What? Why the hell would they do that?”
“It’s totally flooded,” Lark said, holding her arms open wide for emphasis. “One of them actually drowned.”
A bolt of lightning shot across the sky.
“No shit,” Holly said.
Glenn nodded. “Yeah, apparently a few of them are trapped. Hale and the others are helping to get them out, then they’re all going to be staying here, at least until the storm stops. That’s why he wants Taylor downstairs.”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “It seems a little counterintuitive. I mean, shouldn’t we go to the upper chambers where it’s less likely to flood?”
Lark shook her head, sending water flying at Taylor’s face. “No, the upper chambers are full of fissures. They’re actually the first to flood. The lower chambers are safer. In fact, there’s this really awesome room I like to go to in rainstorms. You’re going to love it.”
In her current mood, Taylor wasn’t sure she’d love being anywhere. She hated being ordered around, especially when she didn’t agree with the logic. Why should she have to be sequestered underground just because Whiteriver was coming to her den?
She tried to hide her petulant attitude as they headed down to the lower chambers, taking a passageway she’d yet to explore.
“I still can’t believe Hale is letting them stay here?” Holly said, echoing Taylor’s own thoughts. “Letting them hunt on our territory is one thing, but trusting them in our den?”
“He’s not letting Silas or Olivia in,” Glenn said. “But he can’t really turn the others away. Most of their pack members are elderly—”
“And pups,” Lark chimed in.
Glenn continued, “If we don’t help them, we’re more or less leaving them to die.”
“Well, that’s what they get for being in such a shitty pack,” Holly said with a shrug. “They should have joined us when they had the chance.”
In an obvious attempt to change the subject, Lark said, “You’re going to love the storm room, Taylor. It’s so awesome. It’s way underground, but you can still hear the rain echoing. The whole room has a funny echo. It’s great for telling scary stories.”
Holly gave a snort. “Oh my God, how old are you?”
“Twenty-nine and three-quarters,” Lark said proudly.
Holly’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? You’re older than me?”
“Wow,” Taylor said, surprised herself. She had always imagined Lark being her age, or maybe even a few years younger.
Lark beame
d at them. “What can I say? I age well.”
“More like you don’t age at all,” Holly said. “You have the body of a twelve-year-old boy.”
That comment sent them into a round of insults. Taylor and Glenn wisely kept quiet while the two females dished it out at one another.
The passageway narrowed so that they had to walk two by two. Glenn had brought a lantern, and the light bounced off the walls, which glittered with tiny quartz crystals. Sharp stalactites hung from the ceiling, steadily dripping with water from an unseen reservoir.
Taylor wasn’t sure how far they’d gone, but her feet soon began to ache. Over the past week, they’d taken to swelling. It usually happened in the mornings, once she hobbled into bed. But she’d only been awake for an hour and to her dismay, they were already getting puffy.
“How much farther?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound like an impatient child.
Glenn raised the lantern up higher. “From the looks of it, we’re going to have to head back and go somewhere else.”
Taylor glanced up from her feet. Water pooled up ahead, covering a generous portion of the pathway. It appeared to have come from a crack in the wall and was trickling in at a steady pace.
“What are you talking about?” Lark asked, pushing past them. “It’s just a puddle.”
“Yeah, but it means the passageway is compromised,” Glenn said. He squared his shoulders. “There’s no telling how much water will fill up in here. It’s not safe.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lark huffed. “The passageway inclines upwards from here. Even if more water comes through, the storm room will stay perfectly dry. Besides, we’re almost there.”
“It’s not the room I’m worried about, it’s the structural integrity of the passageway,” Glenn said.
He looked to Holly for support, but the fox shifter was examining her nails. When she noticed him staring, she just blinked. “Huh?”
Looking disgruntled, Glenn then looked to Taylor, who offered him a shrug. “Don’t look at me. I thought it was a dumb idea to come down here in the first place. My feet are killing me. I just want to sit.”