by Mary Hughes
Then she thought of Bruiser in that monster truck, furious as hell and only fifteen minutes away from the compound. His first act returning would be to take out his frustration on something—or someone. Probably on her things, but maybe on anyone in the way.
She grabbed the phone and got hold of a pack cousin, a compound neighbor who’d been kind. The female had given Emma a heads-up about Bruiser when she first arrived in Michigan. Emma had brought everything with her from her mother’s house in Wisconsin, leaving only a few clothes behind for visits home. But when she was negotiating to become part of Bruiser’s pack, the kindly female had taken her aside for a furtive whisper.
“Store anything you really want to keep. All assets are pack assets as far as Bruiser is concerned.” His assets.
Emma had boxed her few small treasures, books for the most part, and shipped them home.
Now she told her pack cousin to get the word out about Bruiser, then hide. If Emma’s bills and plants were shredded…well, she’d deal.
Tentatively she began to tell her pack cousin about the harem abuse. The female started acting cold. Emma was floundering when Gabriel dropped off the stateroom key. She nodded gratefully to him. He gave her a quick smile and strode away.
After Emma got her pack cousin’s promise to be careful, she hung up with a sigh. She’d done all she could from here. She’d have to think of another champion to help the harem.
Save them, like Dr. Light had saved her.
Tucking the phone in a pocket, she wondered again how he’d managed that as beside her, the businessman’s snore droned on. Dr. Light must’ve come to the condo complex and happened to see her being hustled out. Or if not her, he’d seen Bruiser. Hell, nobody could miss that hairy shovel-faced male.
Although she still couldn’t figure out how Dr. Light had known she was in trouble in the first place.
The young mother finished nursing, still trying to corral rambunctious toddlers. The stink of a full diaper reached Emma’s nostrils and tried to yank out nose hairs. Poor mother. Emma knew nothing about toddlers, but she got to her feet, intending to help. And the bench. I promised to take care of it. Well, that would have to wait until morning. The store was closed now.
At that moment the ship hit choppy waters. She stumbled and plunked back into the chair.
The older toddler had no such trouble but dashed past, running toward the exit, giggling maniacally.
Then Dr. Light, head and shoulders above the milling crowd, swooped in and corralled the child.
“Whoa, there, partner.” He used his calming voice. “You need to stay with your mommy, to help her.”
That was so sweet of him. Emma smiled to herself.
Gently he guided the boy by the shoulder back to where the poor young mother restrained the younger tot with one hand while she tried to change the baby’s diaper with the other.
“Here, let me do that.” Dr. Light sat in the lounger next to the young mother and competently dug through her diaper bag, laying out wipes, ointment, and a fresh diaper. To Emma’s surprise, the nerd king took the baby and, as if he’d done it many times, quite capably changed the infant who giggled and cooed the whole time.
Her wolf wagged its tail. Father material. She shushed it.
Feeling like she’d seen something quite personal, intimate even, she rose and, stumbling a little with the ship’s rocking, ducked out the back way.
She found herself in one of the ferry’s food areas. Her nerves were still brittle from everything that had happened, and she indulged in ordering herself a cup of hot tea. Her name was called a few minutes later. She collected the cup, added milk and sugar, capped it, and took it to Dr. Light’s stateroom.
The room was small and empty to her sight. But to her nose…the whole cubicle smelled like Dr. Light. Gabriel. She breathed deep and felt her tensions drop away one by one.
Four hours. The ferry would take four hours to cross Lake Michigan. Sipping tea, she considered the bunk and decided she had time for a nap. After all, who knew what she’d have to confront when they docked in Wisconsin. Bruiser had friends.
Although she’d feel better after washing her face. She set down the cup and went to investigate the carry-on.
Her nose must’ve been especially sensitive. She smelled Dr. Light…Gabriel…everywhere. His carry-on was on the bunk, but strangely, she smelled him not only on his things, but, when she carried his face soap to the tiny sink, his scent floated strongly near the bathroom door.
She breathed deep of his essence, feeling his huge, calm presence, his brilliant competence. One breath, that was all, and she felt wonderful.
She washed her face and dried it with a towel, glancing periodically at the cabin door. For some reason, she smelled Gabriel as if he were in the room with her, and she almost expected him to step into view at any moment. Impossible, as the door was locked and she had the key, but that didn’t stop her from cutting continual peeks as she dampened the towel and used it to scrub the worst of Bruiser’s nasty barbiturate from her hair. She tried to wipe her Techie Titan shirt down, but it was too gunked up with the nasty stuff so she took the polo off, rinsed the worst out, and hung it up to dry.
Then she stripped off her pants, lay down on the bunk, and stared at the door.
What do I do now? She’d left home two months ago to join Bruiser’s pack because jobs were scarce in her hometown of Matinsfield, Wisconsin. Wolf shifter packs were few and far between, but she could count on one paw the number of packs accepting uninvited new members.
And that answered that, didn’t it? At least for now, she’d have to go home.
She’d promised to mind the bench, but she could send Carol an email in the morning, letting her know there’d been an emergency. The second assistant manager would know what to do.
Emma breathed deep, pulling in that distinct masculine scent, inhaling a feeling of safety with it, and relaxed again.
Going home also solved the problem of what to do about those poor women in Bruiser’s harem. The moment Emma got to Matinsfield, she’d report the abuse to the new alpha, Noah Blackwood. The old alpha, hard as it was to believe, had been even worse than Bruiser. Slan Scauth was a corrupt, salacious old bastard; he’d have cheered Bruiser on.
But according to the gossip from Emma’s mother, Noah had made changes to the now-Blackwood pack. Females and elders were starting to come out of their shells. Stronger members of the pack were again protecting weaker, instead of abusing them. Children were starting to thrive.
The new alpha was making economic changes in Matinsfield too. New businesses were opening, others growing. Retail was coming back and work was no longer as scarce.
She might even be able to find a permanent job there.
Strangely, the idea didn’t thrill her. She’d be overjoyed never to see Bruiser’s shovel mug again, but never to go back to Choice Buy, never again to see Gabriel Light…? She sucked in a stabbing breath, pulling in the scent of him, masculine, heady.
What was there about him that called to her so? His commanding height? The sparkling good humor in his eyes? The burning intelligence behind it?
She wished she had her phone so she could replay the video of him, hear his deep voice as he instructed her at the bench, watch his clever hands teaching her. Foamy delight churned in her belly at the memory.
Then she remembered how he’d looked at her when she thought he’d kiss her. The way his eyes darkened behind his glasses as he stared at her lips, dilating to black pools of lust.
Her sex tightened in sudden, almost excruciating need. She turned restlessly on the bunk. Her groin ached.
In truth, the reason she couldn’t sleep was that Gabriel’s masculine scent, so strong it was as if he was in the cabin with her, was driving her wild. Tangy, it smelled of exertion and power and…and the heady musk of arousal.
Sitting abruptly, she groaned a laugh at herself. Now she knew she was imagining things. He wasn’t in the room with her, couldn’t be—not makin
g this strong lusty scent. He’d never ever smelled the least horny when she was around.
She did, though. Reeked of it. She looked down at herself, her tight nipples poking at her sports bra, her sex throbbing and damp beneath her panties.
Throwing herself back onto the mattress, she flopped around a few more minutes before sighing and sitting up again. No sleeping like this. She’d have to take care of business first.
She stripped off her bra.
A thud, like a dense cushion hitting the bulkhead, stopped her. Frowning, she looked around. But no, the small cabin was empty.
She shook her head, stood, and wriggled out of her panties.
Air moved, as if in a great sigh.
Again she stilled, but aside from that persistent scent of masculine arousal, she saw nothing and heard nothing more.
Lying back down, she raised her knees and slipped her hand between her legs.
She thought of Gabriel. What would it be like to see him where her arm was? Would he look dark next to her skin, or pale? Would his waist fill the gap between her thighs…or spread them even wider?
She’d seen a number of males where her hand stroked—shifters in general were sexual creatures, and even as an iota she’d had her choice of beds—but something told her that Gabriel would be one of a kind. His size, his strength, powering into her…her sex heated and got wet under her fingers, the lips plump and soft. She stroked, thinking of his arms tight around her until her clit rose, its tiny shaft hardening.
Would his finger feel different, rubbing her swelling clit? His hands were so much larger than hers; his fingers would be too. Maybe one of his would be like two of hers. She added a second finger and pretended it was him doing this to her. The scent of him filling her nostrils drove extra power into her strokes.
Her skin began to prickle with perspiration. Would he glisten with sweat as he moved over her, kissing her body? Would his lips tease like feathers or glide along her skin like silk? Or would he use teeth…
Her sex clenched under her fingers. She rubbed harder, slipping in her own arousal.
When he finally entered her, would he slide in like grease because she was dripping wet? Or would he be almost too big for her and stretch her?
She gasped as the first ripples of orgasm hinted at what was coming. Huge, dark, shockingly strong. Much like Gabriel himself.
Would his muscles sheen as he pumped into her? Her hips bumped in rhythm with her hand then started jerking beyond her control. Her breath, sawing in and out, heated and cooled her wet mouth. She tweaked one nipple, imagining it was his hot mouth closing on it with nips that pinched.
Orgasm rolled over her, opening every pore in her body. She was coming now.
Would he shout as he climaxed into her? Would he roar her name?
Emma.
She almost heard it for real, a moan of purest anguished desire.
Arching hard, she came, industrial contractions and an explosion of light and pleasure. Smelling him, she vibrated her whole hand, reinforcing the contractions, extending them out into a gorgeous sunset of sensation.
Gradually she came to herself, heart thudding. Clean, refreshed. Happy.
Would he hold her tenderly after?
She pretended he would. With a sigh, she curled up, and went to sleep.
Chapter Six
Gabriel braced himself against the stateroom bulkhead and tried to control his shaking need to bury himself between Emma’s sleek, wet thighs.
Death, he reminded himself. Crispy fried with a side of decapitation.
He’d been invisible, watching her. He hadn’t meant to. Really, he’d offered her the cabin because she needed it, and because he thought he could go slum with his familiar after he gave her the key.
But when he got to Pan’s stateroom there was a metaphysical sock on the door.
He’d returned to the general cabin to find Emma but got sidetracked helping the mother with her baby. By the time he finished, Emma had disappeared, so he returned to his cabin, intending only to stay a mere moment to gather his thoughts, using a talisman to magically open the lock—because after that teleport, he was fried. Even a single-body teleportation was a horrendous power suck, and he’d done two bodies and the whole snap-crackle-damned car.
Before he could decide what to do, he’d heard the scrape of key.
He really didn’t want to have to explain to Emma how he got into a locked stateroom without a key—did not want to have to admit he was a witch. Shifters knew about witches, but they didn’t like them very much.
Emma liked him, and he’d rather keep it that way.
Fortunately as a battle mage, he had a belt full of talismans ready to go, the witch equivalent of Batman’s utility belt. He touched the invisibility talisman, thinking he’d slip out with no one the wiser. It had the side effect of switching off his scent-hiding charm, but as he’d be gone in a second, that wouldn’t be a problem.
She came in looking frazzled, and he knew he’d done the right thing, giving her the stateroom. He sidled toward the exit…then scuttled away when she stalked toward him on her way to the sink.
Whew, that was close. He waited until she was busy scrubbing her hair to tiptoe toward the door. He touched the handle…
She was staring right at him. The hairs on his nape rose and his hand froze. He didn’t want to do a Scooby ghost opening the door, which would raise even more questions in her very sharp mind.
So he waited, but she was never not looking at the damned door. He couldn’t leave without alerting her, and then she got naked and he couldn’t leave because his damned legs wouldn’t work.
When she started rubbing herself and making those cute little moans and her nipples stood proud and her clit even prouder, if he’d been half a man he’d have looked away. But he wasn’t half a man, he was all man, and this was Emma. As if his gaze was pop-riveted, he watched her masturbate, wishing he was her hands, so badly that he shook with it…and exactly who was she thinking about when she groaned and climaxed?
She shut her eyes when she orgasmed and theoretically he could’ve escaped then. But he couldn’t move a muscle, tied to the amazing, cataclysmic sight of her spasming body, the sheer beauty of her face lost in pleasure.
As she sighed and curled up in sleep, he used every ounce of willpower he had to force himself away from the wall. Force his trembling invisible hand to grasp the door handle. Force himself to crack the door and slip out.
The air was cooler in the empty passageway. Gabriel let go of his invisibility talisman. He’d have to recharge it as soon as possible, but that would have to wait until he himself was not only replenished, but much, much calmer. Magic was a finicky deal, sensitive to all manner of disruptions, especially emotional. If he went into it with the wrong mindset, he could do anything from blowing out his electronics to sinking the whole damned ship.
Just look at what happened to my parents’ plane. Pain stabbed him like a corkscrew, the memory endlessly relived.
More recently, look what he’d done to his car. The pain of memory receded. He’d created an incline with a touch of magic channeled by the wand in his shirt pocket, nice and easy. He’d planned to use a controlled spurt of power, funneled by his wand, to steer the car up the incline. Then another tiny heft would lift himself and Emma from the car onto the boat as the roadster fell into the water.
But when Emma squeaked in fright, his adrenaline had spurted spontaneous magic and teleported the whole damned car onto the ferry.
He shuddered. Thank the stars they’d landed on the car deck, not amid the passengers.
Standing in the narrow passageway, he trembled with how near it had been. He wasn’t sure if he meant teleporting the car or getting caught panting for Emma’s gorgeous body, her slim thighs drenched with her pleasure…yes, he needed to get himself under control now.
A good workout would accomplish that.
He kept a gym in a pocket universe. He used it mostly for magical mock-duels with Pan, but t
he thing also had a weight bench and a couple cardio machines, as well as a bathroom and place to sleep.
He touched another talisman, preloaded with a specific magical spell, and unlocked his pocket universe.
A portal opened in front of him, and he stepped through.
Like a warrior monk or an Alaskan nudist, Gabriel existed in a state of constant dissonance as both wizard prince and Techie Titan. Nostradamus University taught that a pocket universe was a room outside of normal space and time, while physics argued it was a bit of our own universe which had popped off, a bubble. Witches called the way into a bubble universe a doorway, whereas he thought of it as a wormhole.
But what he called it or how it worked didn’t negate the fact that it worked.
He stepped through into his workout room. Feeling a bit raw and inflamed after watching Emma’s sweet orgasm, he decided to see if any of his power had regenerated since teleporting the car—by dueling.
Not the real thing. Actual dueling was illegal, and there’d been no wars to give battle mages on-the-job training for three hundred years, so schools used two methods—a paint-ball-like setup where magical hits produced splotches of color and, for individual practice, mirror dueling.
He touched a wall talisman. The far wall shimmered like a stone dropped into liquid silver, then cleared into what seemed to be a flat looking glass. But this mirror reflected more than light. The surface was calibrated to absorb spells and fling them back in unexpected ways, rather like a wild pitching machine.
He’d once told his sister that fighting wasn’t about magic. It was about breathing, preparation, and refusing to lose. About finding mental balance.
But today…
Today he simply drew unseen on any regenerated power and threw a frustrated blast at the mirror. His wand popped into his hand, automatically presenting on need instead of thought as wands did, but he ignored it and simply let the magic fly. A reasonably large power ball splatted into the mirror.