The male nodded—at least as best as he could. “My sister and I joined this pack for protection, that’s all. To survive, not to kill people.”
Adalynn clutched the gun against her chest. Her eyes flicked to Danny. She understood the driving need to protect the ones you love, understood the need to do anything to keep them safe.
Merrick glanced back at Adalynn over his shoulder, his brow low over the one glowing eye she could see. He turned back to the wolves.
“Please,” the female said, “Colin is gone, and we don’t have ties to any of the others. The pack is dissolved.”
“I cannot tolerate any threats to my pack,” Merrick growled as he stood up. “I gave you all a chance to leave. Now this must end.” He lifted his hands, and spheres of blue fire sparked into existence on his palms.
Adalynn closed the distance between herself and Merrick and placed a hand on his back. “Merrick, stop.”
She felt the energy radiating from him, felt its vibrations, sensed the dissonance in his mystical song, which raged faster and stronger now than ever before. The black, shadowy tentacles which writhed around him shuddered and calmed, dropping to caress her arm.
Once again, he looked at her over his shoulder. This time he didn’t turn away.
“Let them go,” she said.
“After all that’s happened, Adalynn? They are a threat.”
Her attention shifted to the werewolves. The female met Adalynn’s gaze, eyes desperate, sad, and pleading, glimmering with a hint of hope. This female and her brother were just like Adalynn and Danny.
Adalynn looked at Merrick and slid her fingers up his back to rest on his shoulder as she moved closer to him. His shadowy tendrils embraced her, and she welcomed their feel. “They’re people. They got caught up with someone bad, but they’re just people. They’re just trying to survive, same as everyone else.”
He released a heavy exhalation and pressed his lips into a tight line. Adalynn saw the struggle on his face, could almost hear it in the song of his magic. And she understood. His dilemma was a clear—what was best for his people? If he let these wolves go, would they return later and cause more trouble? Would they come back with more of their kind to seek revenge?
Right now, all she could see in the wolves’ faces was fear. That could turn to anger and resentment, but she didn’t believe it would in this case. She believed what the wolves had said.
“Let them go, Merrick,” she repeated, softer, before pressing her lips to his shoulder.
Some of the tension in his body eased, and the energy radiating from him diminished. He curled his fingers, and, after a few seconds, the magic around his hands wavered and changed. It went from flamelike to fluidlike, shifting and wobbling in the air like oil in water.
The ground rumbled, and then it, too, rippled like the surface of a lake. Eyes wide, Adalynn stared as the wolves rose out of the ground as though riding an unseen elevator. Once they were fully free, the ground solidified, but the wolves kept rising until they were at least five feet above the ground.
“You’ve seen what happens to those who trespass and threaten me,” Merrick said. “Leave my land. If you come back, you’ll wind up like your fellows—and I will use your ashes to fertilize my crops. Do you understand?”
The werewolves whined and nodded quickly.
“We swear,” said the male.
Merrick lowered his arms, and the wolves dropped along with them, crashing onto the ground mere feet away from him. “You have thirty seconds before I change my mind again.”
They scrambled to their feet. The male ran, but the female hesitated, her gaze flickering between Merrick and Adalynn.
“Thank you,” she said before following her brother, who had paused at the edge of the woods.
The werewolves were gone a moment later, vanished amid the darkness between the trees.
That quickly, the tension left Adalynn’s limbs, and she lowered the gun to the ground. She could feel every bump and bruise she’d suffered, every hurt; the pain had been swept aside by terror and adrenaline.
She shifted her attention to Merrick. The magic around him faded until all that remained of it was a lingering afterimage, which itself was gone in a few seconds.
He turned to face her. His wounds were already sealed—in fact, they looked like they’d been healing for two or three weeks—and his eyes still glowed blue. “We should get back inside. I’ll tend to this mess tomorrow.”
Adalynn stepped up to him, cupped his cheeks, guided his head down, and kissed him. She pressed her mouth hard against his, tasting the magic on his skin. It tingled on her lips, as arousing as it was soothing.
Merrick submitted to her kiss, but his body was tense, as though he were holding himself back. She didn’t want him to. She didn’t care about what he was, didn’t care about her own pain; all she wanted was to feel his arms around her, to feel him—all of him—alive and well, against her, holding her.
She met his gaze when she pulled away. “Thank you.”
The hardness that dominated his features since he’d woken her smoothed away. His tongue slipped out and flicked over his lips. “For what?”
“Everything.”
“Gross,” Danny said from behind her. “Dude. Are you having sex with my sister?”
Adalynn’s cheeks warmed, and she pressed her lips together in a failed attempt to contain the laughter bubbling up within her. She dropped her hands to Merrick’s shoulders and let her head fall against his chest as she quietly chuckled.
Merrick slipped his arms around her and held her close. “It’s well past your bedtime, young Daniel. I think it’s time we remedied that.”
“Oh, no way. I am not a little kid,” Danny replied. “I think I have the right to know what your intentions are. She’s my sister.”
“And you’re what, ten, eleven? Ask again in twenty years and we’ll decide if you’re mature enough to know.”
“Dude, I’m thirteen! And I stabbed a werewolf tonight! I think I’m mature enough.”
“And I killed three werewolves, dude. You have a way to go, I think.”
“That’s not the point. What are you planning on doing with my sister?”
Adalynn glanced up at Merrick, who shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“You do realize, Daniel, that it is incredibly rude and inappropriate to be asking those questions of a lady?” Merrick said. “Especially your sister.”
“Nope. Don’t care,” Danny said. “And stop sounding so old.”
Adalynn stepped away from Merrick. She felt his hesitation, but he released her, his arms falling to his sides. She turned toward her brother. Danny wore a very unhappy frown on his face, his expression a blend of upset and frustration.
Her heart ached. She walked over to him and enfolded him in her arms. He hugged her back without delay.
“Danny, I’m old enough to make decisions for myself. You don’t need to worry about me.” She pulled her head back and met his gaze as she lowered her voice to a whisper, though she knew Merrick would likely hear her anyway. “You trust him, right?”
Danny glanced at Merrick over her shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about, because I trust him too.”
Danny shuffled his bare foot in the dirt, looking down for a moment. “Do you like him?”
“Of course I like him.”
“No, I mean, do you like him like him?”
Adalynn’s breath caught. It was strange that a phrase like that—one she probably hadn’t heard since she was about Danny’s age—could cut so directly to the core of what she felt. Just the thought of Merrick made her heart quicken and her body react, filling her with the need to be close to him, to feel him, to touch him and be touched by him in return. Her soul called out to him.
But those weren’t things she could admit out loud—not to Danny, and most especially not to Merrick. Those feelings were hers to harbor. Because despite the intensity of those feelings…she hadn’t r
eally come to understand them yet. She didn’t know how deep they ran, or what they really meant.
And because she was dying. She didn’t want to encourage anything more than a physical relationship with Merrick, didn’t want him to get so involved that he’d be crushed when the inevitable came to pass. But she couldn’t stop what she already felt for him—and she would embrace it, cherish it, and cling to it for as long as she could.
She smiled softly. “Yeah, I like him like him.”
“Okay, well…just don’t let me hear or see anything, okay?” His face screwed up in an exaggerated a look of disgust. “I’m not a fan of puking.”
Adalynn chuckled, pecked a kiss on his cheek, and released him before turning back to Merrick. There was a smirk on his lips, and though it was a tender expression, it could not conceal the mixture of relief and concern lingering in his still-glowing eyes.
“If you vomit on my floor, Daniel, you’ll be sleeping outside for the foreseeable future,” Merrick said.
“Can’t you just”— Danny waved his hand vaguely—“magic it away? And don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop?”
“It’s a bit difficult not to overhear when you’re standing five feet away, and it doesn’t matter whether I can magic it away. I don’t want my floors soiled. They’ve been pristine for a century, and I don’t need a ten-year-old mucking them up.”
“Bet you don’t care if Addy does,” Danny muttered.
“I would rather she not,” Merrick replied, “but for entirely different reasons.” He gestured at the house. “Now let’s get inside before anything else slithers out of the night to say hello.”
Danny sighed and turned toward the manor. “Gotta admit, though…you were pretty cool, Merrick. You’re like a badass superhero.”
Merrick leaned down to pick up the shotgun. “I’m just going to assume all that was a compliment.” He led them back up the porch steps, opened the door to the kitchen, and stood aside, looking at Adalynn. “We can move into one of the guest bedrooms for the rest of the night. I will repair the master bedroom in the morning.”
Danny released a dramatic sigh and moved ahead of Adalynn, walking past Merrick and into the house.
“We?” Adalynn stopped just inside the kitchen, glancing at Danny as he turned into the hallway.
Merrick stepped through the doorway and tugged the door closed behind him, pausing directly in front of her, leaving barely a few inches of space between them. “I would prefer to have you back in my bed, but I fear there’d be something of a draft in there tonight.”
Adalynn lifted her hand and lightly ran her fingertips over the new scars on his chest. “So, you want me to sleep with you?”
She wanted to be back in his arms, lying next to him, feeling his hands and lips on her skin; she wanted more than anything for him to erase the memory of the werewolf’s touch with his own.
He leaned slightly closer. Even though magic no longer pulsed along his skin, he still radiated that thrilling power. “Is that not what we were doing before this interruption?”
“I just…didn’t know, now that we’re awake, and we’re not…you know?” The heat in her cheeks intensified.
“You think I would use you for pleasure and set you aside?” He took hold of her wrist and guided it to his chest, flattening her palm over his heart. “What we’ve shared runs much deeper than that, Adalynn.”
I know.
She wanted to say those words aloud but couldn’t; her throat constricted around them. Instead, she slid her free hand up into his hair and pulled him toward her while rising on her toes to kiss him. She let her lips convey what she felt as they caressed and nipped his, and, when he opened his mouth to return the kiss fully, fervently, she used her tongue.
His mouth covered hers hungrily. He set the shotgun on the counter behind Adalynn and slid his arms around her, seizing control of the kiss. He kissed her with a soul-searing desperation that left her breathless and needy. His hands roamed over her, sliding down to her ass. He cupped her backside, pulling her against him, against the hardness of his erection; she was separated from it only by his pants. Desire burned in her core and flooded her veins, and her inner thighs slickened with arousal.
Merrick groaned appreciatively. He broke the kiss and rasped, “Guess we’re not going to your bedroom.”
Adalynn opened her eyes and met his glowing gaze. “No. Here. Now. I need you now.”
He grinned and tightened his grip on her ass, lifting her and sitting her on the edge of the counter. Moving quickly, he reached between them, released his cock from the confines of his pants, shoved her legs apart, and thrust inside her.
Adalynn gasped, her eyelids fluttering but not closing, as Merrick’s power—that song from his soul—arced into her. She slid her arms around him, clutching at his back as he pushed deeper into her, stretching her. His way was made easier by her wetness, her arousal. Clasping her hips, he pulled back and thrust into her again, burying himself completely inside her.
Perfect. This is perfect.
She raised her knees and wrapped her legs around him, wanting to hold him inside her forever. She longed to be in this moment forever, hearing their songs intertwine, feeling him through this magical connection they shared.
Merrick tilted his head back as he bared his teeth and growled. His features were contorted with agony—the agony of longing, of yet-unfulfilled desire, of pleasure already building beyond what one person could bear. Blue trails of energy blazed along his arms and flared in his eyes, and the air behind him darkened as his supernatural shadows coalesced.
The shadowy tentacles swept forward and brushed over Adalynn’s skin, their touch at once cool and electric, soothing and thrilling. When one of them slipped between her legs to stroke her clit, pleasure shot straight through Adalynn. She cried out and undulated her pelvis against Merrick.
He groaned deep in his throat and moved his hips, pulling back and pushing forward repeatedly in a quickening rhythm. The slide of his hard cock sent waves of bliss through her that only built in intensity with his momentum. He kept one hand on her backside, holding her exactly where he wanted her as he pounded into her. He tore open her robe with his other hand.
Leaning his face forward, he cupped her breast in his palm and squeezed it, kneaded it, and pinched her nipple to send sharp jolts of pleasure-pain right to her core.
“Ah, Adalynn,” Merrick rasped. His lips roamed over her chin, her jaw, and her throat before moving to her mouth. “You are mine, and I will keep you no matter what we face. I will never let you go.”
Then his mouth claimed hers as punishingly as he’d claimed her body. He devoured Adalynn, consumed her, and she was enveloped by his magic as spirals of ecstasy rushed through her. She succumbed to it, to him, and she soared higher and higher, her cries muffled by his kiss. Her nails bit into his back as she tried to draw him closer. She couldn’t get enough; she needed more.
His dark tentacles caressed her, leaving no place untouched as Merrick surged in and out of her, pounding harder and harder, deeper and deeper, each thrust producing a burst of pleasure that created a maelstrom of sensation deep inside her, coiling tight around her center.
Suddenly, that intense pleasure unfolded within her, and she reached her peak. Her body shuddered, locking tight, as she was racked by powerful spasms. Every muscle quivered, and her sex clamped around his cock.
Merrick’s climax came on the heels of hers. He arched his back as he tensed, and with a final thrust, buried himself deep inside her. His magic surged in time with the eruption of hot seed within her, its intensified thrum engulfing her from head to toe and rocketing her to another orgasm. Merrick growled out his pleasure and shifted his hips in erratic motions, pushing the two of them just a little further.
As the urgency of their lovemaking faded, Adalynn sagged in his arms, pressing her face against his neck. She panted softly, breathing in his scent—leather and cedar. Sweat slickened their skin, and she could feel both his seed and
her wetness seeping out of her. She and Merrick were completely exposed in the middle of the kitchen, but Adalynn didn’t care.
She was exactly where she wanted to be.
She kissed his neck.
Merrick lifted his hand from her breast and moved it up to delve his fingers into her hair. His other arm wrapped around her, drawing her tighter against him.
I love him.
I love him.
The realization wasn’t surprising. It didn’t matter that they’d only known each other for so short a time, she felt it without question—in her heart, in her soul, in the song that played in her mind and thrummed within her. As soon as she had opened herself up to her emotions, it hadn’t been hard to fall in love with Merrick. How could it have been when everything about him felt so right? Being in his arms was like being home; safe, protected, sheltered.
If only I had more time with him.
As though he sensed the discord in her, his hold on her tightened further, and he tipped his head forward to rest his cheek atop her hair. “Whatever it takes, Adalynn. I will find a way.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next several days passed with a lightness and joy that outshone the darkness of the werewolf attack. Adalynn, Merrick, and Danny settled into something of a routine during that time; they’d have breakfast together—which always included snappy banter between Danny and Merrick that made Adalynn laugh—and, once everything was cleaned up, Merrick would take Danny outside to tend the garden. While they saw to the crops, Adalynn would work in the kitchen, preparing food for canning. She found the process relaxing, and often lost herself in the task. Merrick and Danny would come back in for lunch in the early afternoon, and Merrick would help her finish canning.
That would signal the end of their workday. After that, Adalynn and Danny were free to do as they pleased. Merrick took them out back a couple times and taught them some basics with the shotgun. Danny’s enthusiasm for the lessons was a bit alarming to Adalynn, and he seemed little deterred by Merrick’s attempts to ease them into using the weapon—he’d only allowed Danny to fire a few shells. Still, Merrick brought Danny hunting with him early one morning. They returned well before noon with a fat turkey slung over Merrick’s shoulder.
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