“I’d kiss you again for that, but I have to take a rain check. It’s got jacketed hollow points, so you can aim to wound and he’ll stop and drop.” He waved me toward the stairs. “Go.”
I went, running in a low crouch, heart thumping. I didn’t slow down until I’d locked the door behind me. Then I went through the suite, checking for unwanted guests. Behind doors. Under furniture. Any place big enough for a dog to hide, because they might not be in human form.
Once I was sure it was clear, I picked the walk-in closet as the most protected spot and the easiest to defend. I took a position that let me cover the door.
Then I waited. This was the worst part, and it wore on my nerves from two directions. I didn’t know where the enemy was or what was happening. I didn’t know where my people were, if they were safe. I didn’t know what David and Zach were doing.
Zach had trusted me to do my part. Now it was my turn and I had to do the same. Stay out of the way and let him prove that alpha was more than a title.
Still, a tiny corner of my mind chanted over and over again, Be safe. Be safe. Be safe.
I wanted to be in Zach’s arms. I wanted David. I wanted my mates and the reassurance of physical contact. I wanted to know in my cells that they were with me, mine, and unharmed. I wanted them both to say the words my heart ached to hear, but as I sat there waiting I decided I’d willingly forego that for the rest of my life if I could just be held between them again.
The gun grew heavy, so I held it in a double-handed grip and rested my arms on my upraised knees from my position on the floor. I kept my eyes moving so I’d see any warning glimpse of motion or shadow. I listened for any sound and heard nothing but my own measured breathing.
Then a muffled noise stopped my heart. The sound of a door opening and closing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MY DOOR? I COULDN’T TELL. IF NOT, IT WAS NEARBY. BUT WHOEVER IT was, they were on two legs, not four. Werewolves couldn’t turn doorknobs.
I looked at the gun Zach had given me and wondered if it held silver-injected bullets or if the regular kind would do the job.
I quieted my breathing and stayed motionless. I didn’t want to give away my presence. The silence stretched out while I strained to hear another telltale noise. If the door had been opened by one of the good guys, he would have come in calling my name and telling me it was safe. Whoever was nearby was being very quiet.
Wait, I told myself. Listen. Don’t panic.
When a man’s shape appeared in the closet door, it still startled me, even though I’d been expecting the intruder to reveal himself. I aimed for the shoulder and my finger was tightening on the trigger when a blood-chilling snarl came from behind the renegade wolf. Help was here. Relief flooded me.
“That would be your warning to stop, lie facedown on the floor, and put your hands on your head,” I said.
He froze.
“There’s a wolf behind you ready to hamstring you, and I have a gun pointed at you, so I strongly suggest you do what you’re told.”
I kept the gun steady, not sure if he’d prefer to take his chances or he’d surrender. He chose surrender, but I kept the gun trained on him all the same, even after he was on the floor. Once he was down, I could see the black wolf his body had blocked from my view. David.
The wolf gave me an approving look and shifted back to human form. He held his hand out for the gun. I gave it to him. He cold-cocked our prisoner on the back of the head with the butt of the weapon and turned back to me. I was already running to him, and his arms closed around me in a solid clasp that promised home.
“You’re safe,” he said in a rough voice. “God, I thought I might not catch up to him in time.”
A little laugh escaped me. “Hey. I’m not the helpless female. I’m the monster in the closet.”
He laughed, too, a hard, surprised sound, and then neither of us made any sound at all for a long minute. When he broke off the kiss, I held on to him for balance, my knees watery for a reason besides relief.
“Where’s Zach?” I asked when I caught my breath. “What’s happening?”
“In the woods. It’s over. This straggler slipped free, and I came after him, but we got the rest of them. We’re safe.”
Over. Safe. I closed my eyes, overwhelmed by gratitude for those two words. I wasn’t sure I’d believe it in my bones until I could see and touch Zach for myself, but it was really over. Somewhere ahead, the bright summer waited for us.
David left me guarding the prisoner while he found more rope, secured the renegade, and then hauled him off to rejoin the others.
I went downstairs to wait in the solarium for the pack’s return, straining my eyes for a glimpse of curling hair and familiar shoulders.
When Zach finally came into view, I bolted out the door, raced across the lawn, and threw myself at him.
“Where are they?” I asked after a minute.
“Gone.”
“Gone how? Dead? Ran away, possibly planning to regroup later?”
“Neither. They all surrendered, and then the Leshii appeared and sent them somewhere. He said they wouldn’t be back.”
That surprised me. “Sent them somewhere else? Maybe another forest, far, far away.” I liked that solution. I especially liked that it hadn’t involved more death, ours or anybody else’s.
I’d had enough fighting, enough trouble. I wanted my mates and my pack nearby, camaraderie and comfort and closeness. I hugged Zach hard, so glad to be with him I had no words.
“Come on. Let’s get you inside.” Zach swung me up in his arms. I looped mine around his neck and hung on, and the rest of the pack followed us into the house.
“David said you had a bead on our straggler,” he said as he carried me up to my suite. Ours now, I corrected myself. Mine and Zach’s and David’s.
“Yeah.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I’m so glad I didn’t have to pull the trigger. David was right behind him, so he was trapped between us. He gave up at that point.”
“I’m glad you didn’t have to shoot, too, and sorry it came that close. You shouldn’t have been in danger.”
“Not your fault,” I said, picking up on that tone in his voice. “You sent me to safety and armed me as a precaution. Good thing, as it turned out.”
Zach’s mouth covered mine, and I wrapped myself around him in surrender and abandon. The sound of the door opening and closing meant David had joined us. When I felt hands settle on my hips from behind me and lips brushing the sensitive nape of my neck, I smiled against Zach’s mouth.
“David.”
“Mmm.” His teeth grazed the curve of my neck and shoulder, sending a very pleasurable shiver through me.
My men. My mates. My future. I nestled between them and absorbed their warmth, soothed by their nearness, intoxicated by the electric dance of awareness they sent skittering over my skin. Zach’s kiss deepened until the taste of him filled my senses. David’s hands moved over my hips while he nipped and kissed the sides of my neck and teased the lobes of my ears. My pulse leaped, and low in my body heat coiled.
I was wearing too many clothes. We all were. I ran impatient hands over Zach, tugging at fabric, searching out bare skin. I felt starved for contact, and stroking my palms over his bare back fed my hunger for him.
I needed this. I needed them. I needed to know we were really all right. Zach and David both caught the hem of my sweater and pulled it up from the front and back simultaneously, undressing me together. Cool air touched my skin in the places where they didn’t, the contrast sharpening my awareness of our bodies meeting.
Zach broke off the kiss long enough for them to draw my sweater over my head and toss it aside. David’s fingers went to work on the back clasp of my bra while Zach’s found the snap and zipper on my jeans. He opened them and knelt down in front of me to kiss the skin he’d bared, his lips tracing the elastic waistband of my panties.
My bra undone, David slid the straps down my arms, his warm fi
ngers caressing sensitive points along the way. I sighed as he seduced me with a touch on the insides of elbows and wrists. Then my bra followed my sweater, and David’s hands moved up my ribs until he cupped my breasts.
His hands squeezed and stroked, evoking a sweet ache for more. More touch, more pressure. My nipples tightened as if pouting for attention, and he gave it. His fingers circled, pinched, tugged, released, and every action sent a reaction through my lower body.
My sex swelled in anticipation. My inner muscles tightened in involuntary flutters. I held my breath, waiting for Zach to work my jeans down my hips, but he wasn’t in a hurry. He covered my abdomen with butterfly kisses, then slid his fingertip under the elastic of my panties to touch lower, until he teased the pubic curls covering my mound.
“Zach,” I whispered. I wove the fingers of one hand into his hair, reached behind me with the other to press my palm against David’s hip. My head lolled back on David’s shoulder, exposing the curve of my throat. He bent to trail kisses there while his hands played over my breasts.
Zach gave in to my silent urging and pulled my jeans down to my ankles. I stepped out of first one leg, then the other, and those were gone, too, leaving only the thin fabric of my underwear between me and full nudity. David just wore jeans, pulled on after he’d changed back to human form, and the heated expanse of his skin against my bare back was a pleasure all its own. I could feel the rasp of his jeans against my panties, the hard length of his cock undisguised by the layers between us.
Zach began to undress while I watched him with heavy-lidded eyes. He discarded his shirt first, and I admired his sculpted torso and shoulders while his fingers went to the snap of his jeans. The muscles of his arms worked as he undid the pants and finished stripping. The sheer masculine beauty of sinew and tendon stole my breath.
Then he was naked and my focus went to his thick, fully engorged cock.
“What big eyes you have,” David murmured by my ear, noticing my reaction.
I smiled and rubbed against him. “Good thing. I wouldn’t want to miss seeing any of this.”
Zach came close again, and his arms went around my waist to pull my body into his. His hands moved down to grip the curve of my butt and press us more tightly together. Behind me, David went to work on getting his pants off. I pressed my face against Zach, nuzzled his shoulder, kissed the pulse point at the base of his throat. Then he turned me around, and his hands explored me while I watched David finish getting naked.
“My eyes are not all that’s big around here,” I said, giving David a wicked look.
He met it and crooked a finger at me. “Come here, Red.” I laughed and slipped free of Zach’s loose hold to close the short distance between us. I dropped to my knees and traced the length of him with my lips, kissing all the way down to the base of his cock, licking my way back up before I circled his head with my tongue.
“Stop,” he muttered. His hands closed on my shoulders and urged me up. We moved to the bed, and laughter faded into sighs and kisses. We touched and clung and rolled, reassuring ourselves and one another that all was well.
I ended on my back under David, holding Zach’s hand while he sheathed himself in my willing flesh. The slight bend in David’s penis put pressure on a sensitive point deep inside me, stroking my G-spot as our bodies rocked together. I wound my legs around his and urged him to take me faster, but he kept a steady rhythm that drew out the building pleasure. He rode me with leisurely strokes, as if luxuriating in the feel of me under him, wrapped around him.
“David,” I protested, my hips rising up to meet his thrusts and straining for more.
“Want something?” He levered himself up to look down at me, his gray eyes dark with desire.
“You.”
He picked up the tempo, and a rush of sensation and emotion sent me hurtling toward an invisible peak. When I hit it and shattered, I felt Zach’s lips on my knuckles. Knowing he shared the moment with us made it brighter and better.
When the knot released, David came to rest beside me, kissing me with languorous heat while Zach moved between my legs and over me. He pushed the thick length of his cock inside me while David filled my mouth with his tongue. David ended the kiss and Zach took over, taking my lips while he claimed my pussy. The two of them taking me by turns sent my senses spinning, and the heat built to a flash point all over again.
Zach was utterly unrestrained, rough and urgent, fucking me with animal ferocity. I welcomed his dominant possession of my body and made my own claim on his, raking him with my nails and teeth. He came hard, pumping himself into me in a violent spending that went on and on, and I took it all. Then my own orgasm overwhelmed me and I rocketed to the climax, my inner muscles milking Zach’s penis as he drove balls deep into me and spurted a last, liquid burst.
Afterward I cuddled between them, exchanging kisses and caresses, delighting in the slide of masculine legs against mine, the press of bodies, the sense of safety and completion I felt with them.
“I love you,” I said, tracing the curve of Zach’s face with a besotted finger. I drank in the glowing amber warmth of his eyes. “I don’t know how I can love you both the way I do, but I love you. I don’t care anymore if you don’t love me back. I just want to be with you, both of you, for the rest of our lives.”
Zach blinked at me, a frown tightening the relaxed lines of his face. “What?”
I rested my hand against his cheek. “I said I don’t care anymore if you don’t love me back. It’s enough that I love you and we’re together.”
David rose up behind me to peer down into my face. “Not love you?” He stared at me, then at Zach. “She actually means it.”
They pushed me onto my back and both of them leaned over me, propped up on their arms, bracketing me.
“She has abandonment issues,” David informed Zach.
“Apparently. Why do you think we don’t love you?” Zach asked me.
I felt a little defensive under their twin frowns. “Well, neither of you ever said it. I assumed.”
“Assume makes an ass of you and me,” David said. “I admit I’ve been an ass, but I thought I made it clear that it won’t happen again.”
“You’re our mate,” Zach added. “What do you think that means?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Mystical werewolf bond. Lifelong commitment. Needing to be together.”
“It means I love you.” Zach bent his head and kissed me, slow, sweet, deep, and lingering. “It’s a choice of heart, remember? You have my heart. You are my heart.”
Oh. I stared up at him, hardly daring to believe.
“I love you,” David said, his voice low and rough. “I died a thousand deaths today running up those stairs, thinking I might be too late.”
I blinked, feeling tears stinging the back of my eyes. My throat ached with a swell of emotion. David kissed me, hard, fierce, hungry, hot.
Loving.
This was love, and it stole my breath.
When David raised his head, I looked from his face to Zach’s, feeling dazed and awed. “You love me.”
“Yes.” Zach grinned at me, then turned to David. “I think she gets it now.”
“Well, maybe.” David gave me a doubtful glance. “She might need more convincing.”
“She might.” They exchanged masculine smiles, then turned them on me. Their smiles widened with sexual intent, and none of us did any more talking for a long time.
A week later, I arranged a bouquet of flowers on my birth parents’ joint burial plot. I traced their names on the headstone, the dates, my personal history carved in marble, then sat back to look at the splash of life and color the blossoms made against the winter grass.
So many questions finally answered. The mystery of my identity solved. I knew who I was now. A work in progress, like I’d told Rhonda, but a work I liked. I hoped they’d be proud of me. I sat there for a minute, saying hello and good-bye. Then I looked up to see David and Zach waiting in the distance.
I stood up and walked toward it.
READ ON FOR A PREVIEW OF CHARLENE TEGLIA’S UPCOMING
EROTIC ROMANCE
Claimed by the Wolf: A Shadow Guardians Novel
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN IN SUMMER 2009
They guard humanity against supernatural threats from the five gateways into the world. The Shadow Guardians: a vampire, a werewolf, a demon, a dragon, and a fae are united in brotherhood—and war.
Shadow Guardian Kenric is an alpha werewolf forever in his prime. When Sybil, a beautiful apprentice witch, unknowingly opens a realm to the otherworld, there is a sudden influx of demons—and it’s up to Kenric to help her stop them. Soon their passion flares, and Kenric desires Sybil as his mate. But to form their union, Sybil faces the ultimate test: she must bind herself to the Shadow Guardians by sharing herself with all five warriors.
Copyright © 2009 by Charlene Teglia
PROLOGUE
KENRIC WOULD HAVE CURSED WHEN THE DEMON HE PURSUED EVADED him, but in his wolf form he could only snarl. The sound of a wolf on the hunt denied its prey was more chilling than any curse he could have uttered, but the demon wasn’t there to be intimidated by it. How could the creature have escaped him?
Frustrated fury drove him to cover the ground again, and the trail ended in the same place: a gate. The creature had fled through it to its home in the shadow realms, where Kenric could not follow. The sounds of battle forced him to turn away and abandon his hunt. This demon had fled, but the others still fought.
Kenric’s pack boasted a hundred warriors at full strength. The allied forces of werewolves, witches, dragons, sidhe, vampires, and one rebel breed of demon had gathered in this ancient valley that had been home to Akkadians before the Sumerians and then Babylonians ruled. Here they made their stand against the invaders from the shadow realms.
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