by Dena Christy
“Are you even going to make an effort to trust me? Am I going to spend the next year being questioned about every man I talk to while you look for evidence that I’m running around on you?”
“Can you blame me? You did it once before.” A thunderous look crossed his face.
“Listen to me, because I’m only going to tell you this once. This isn’t going to work until we make an effort to put the past behind us, and to do that you need to trust me. I am telling you right now that I have no intention of betraying you. The promises I made tonight meant a lot to me, and I have every intention of spending the next year fulfilling them. Perhaps you need to think about if you meant them too. We can either spend the next year with suspicion tearing us apart or we can move forward with a clean slate. I know how I want to spend the next year. How do you?”
Her voice echoed off the high ceilings and she didn’t give him a chance to answer her. She went to where her bags stood and picked them up.
“Where are you going?” His voice was a lot quieter than hers had been and she didn’t turn to look at him. One thing was certain, she was not in the mood to share her body with him while he was determined to see betrayal where there was none.
“Please direct me to a bedroom where I can sleep alone. Until we find a way forward, I think it’s best if we keep our bodies to ourselves.”
To Mason’s credit he didn’t try to argue with her, didn’t try to accuse her of withholding sex to get her own way. She followed him up the stairs to the room she would spend a solitary night, and the next year stretched ahead of her like a jail sentence. There was so much distance between them that she didn’t know if it would ever be breached.
With a growl, Mason rolled over and punched his pillow. He’d been in bed for over an hour and was no closer to sleep. He just had to open his mouth and ask her what had been bugging him all night. Instead of enjoying himself this evening, he kept looking at Grace and then at his cousin, trying to figure out what was going on between them.
He thought he’d been over it, but seeing how right she looked in his house put him on the defensive. He didn’t want to think that she belonged here, because in a year from now she probably wouldn’t be here. So he’d asked her what had been nagging at the back of his head all night.
He shoved off the blankets and turned so that he sat on the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor. What was wrong with him? He knew that there was nothing sexual going on between Grace and Logan. But something nagged at him, some feeling that there was more to their discussion tonight than just Logan asking her one more time if she wanted to go through with the binding. She’d gotten defensive, and if that was all there was to it, there was no need for her to be. Of course he hadn’t exactly endeared himself to her when he said he knew nothing was going on between them because he trusted Logan. Which implied that he didn’t trust her.
And that was why he was in his bed alone. If he’d just not asked her, if he’d kept his mouth shut, she could be in his bed right now. Her nude body could be under him, and he could show her just who she belonged to. He could show her just how much he wanted her.
And want her he did. He’d realized his error when she’d turned on him and demanded that she be given a room separate from him. She’d been magnificent when she’d told him exactly how things were going to be, and all he could think of was taking her to his bed and capturing some of that fire that was inside her.
He gave a bitter laugh as he stood. There was no chance of that happening. If he’d set out to make her not want to sleep with him he didn’t think he could have done a better job.
There was no point in recriminating over it now. She wasn’t coming to his bed tonight, and it didn’t look like she was going to be in it any time soon. That had been made clear when she’d told him that unless he was willing to put his trust in her, they were only going to spend the next year tearing each other apart. And that was the last thing he wanted. He’d committed himself to her for the next year, and he owed it to both of him to move forward with a clean slate.
He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep any time soon, not with the jumbled mass of desire and suspicion running through him. It was easy to say that he was going to move forward and put the past behind him, but she’d betrayed him in the worst way possible. How was he supposed to come back from that, to trust her the way she was demanding him to. She said that she meant the promises she’d made to him tonight, but how could he trust her word. They’d made promises fifteen years ago and it hadn’t stopped her from breaking them.
He shoved his legs in his jeans one at a time and pulled them up over his flanks. He needed a run. There was no way he was going to sleep tonight unless he achieved some sort of clarity. In his wolf form, running in the woods reduced everything to its most basic.
It was the stripping down of every extraneous emotion going through him that he needed right now. Grace was right about one thing, they couldn’t go on the way they had been. He had an obligation to his pack to try to make this work for the next year, and if he was going to throw every ugly suspicion that he had in his head at her, they were never going to achieve any kind of harmony.
He opened his bedroom door and stood in the hall for a second. The house was silent around him, and it seemed no different than it had on any other night. Only things were different. A woman now slept down the hall, the woman who’d been the subject of his thoughts and dreams for the past fifteen years. Perhaps the reason he’d not been able to let her go from his mind was because their break up had been so abrupt. It had blindsided him, because he’d honestly thought they were happy and then the next moment she was telling him that it was over, that there was someone else. She hadn’t even had the decency to tell him in person. She’d done it over the phone.
With a shake of his head, he made his way down the stairs on bare feet. This was not helping him clear his mind. He needed to stop going over and over in his head what had happened. The fact was that it had happened, and stewing about it wouldn’t undo it. They’d been so young then, and the feelings between them had been so intense, at least for him. Was that why she’d done it? Had it just been a mistake made by a woman on the cusp of adulthood?
Why was he still thinking about this? He wasn’t going to find any answers tonight. He went out the back door of the house and stood on the back deck under the night sky. There was a taste of the autumn to come on the breeze that caressed the bare flesh of his upper body. He undid the button of his jeans and shoved them down his legs. Normally he would not have bothered with them, but he was no longer alone in his house and until Grace lifted the restrictions on their sex life he’d be respectful enough to not walk around the house nude.
He closed his eyes and embraced his change. He could feel his muscles and bones shifting and moving under his skin as his other form took over. Once he opened his eyes the world was different. He was different. The night came alive around him as the breeze ruffled his fur. His claws clicked on the wooden steps leading off the deck and the grass brushed against the fur on his paws as he walked toward the center of the backyard.
Tipping his head back he scented the air and he caught the smell of a rabbit. He turned his head in the direction of where the scent had come from and he could just see it there, huddled at the edge of the trees. Although it held completely still he could almost hear its heart hammering in its tiny little body and it jacked up the prey drive inside him.
The rabbit must have sensed that it was about to be devoured because it took off into the trees and Mason ran after it, his paws tearing at the grass as he went off like a shot after the rabbit. This was what he needed. In this form every thought, every emotion, was pure. There was nothing to intrude on him in this form. He could feel the pine needles under his running paws, the scent of rabbit in his nose and the sounds of the night around him.
He came to a clearing in the middle of the woods, and skidded to a halt. It was the rabb
it’s lucky night because he had lost it somewhere. It’s den must be somewhere close by, and he was certain that it wouldn’t be coming out of it until it was sure that the big bad wolf was gone.
He tested the air, just to make sure that his quarry had escaped for the night and a scent came to him that had the hackles raising on the back of his neck. It was the scent of wolf, but it was one he did not know. There was an ugly quality to the scent, as if whoever it belonged to was so steeped in malice that it was coming out of his pores.
Mason peeled his lip back and growled, as if daring whoever it was that watched him from the trees to come and face him. The scent got fainter on the wind and he knew that whoever it was, there was no chance that he was coming for him, that he was a coward who wasn’t going to show himself.
He was in the process of turning away when it struck him that Grace was alone in the house. Alone and vulnerable, without even a locked door to protect her from whoever was watching from the trees. In this form there was no subtlety, no nuance, all he knew in this form was that his mate was alone. His mate was vulnerable and a protectiveness rose inside him that was so strong that the need to kill any who threatened her pounded in his blood as he turned around and raced back to his home.
He ran faster back the way he came than he had when he’d hunted the rabbit. The drive inside him to protect her, to keep her safe was stronger than any desire to hunt. As a wolf he knew that she was his mate, something that was muddle by human emotion when he was a man. He burst through the trees and into the clearing behind his house.
There was no one around, and it looked no different than when he’d left. He sniffed the air, and there was no evidence that the stranger with the malicious scent had been here. Still, as he trotted toward the deck, he knew that his run was over for the night. Someone had been out there watching, and he knew with a deep instinct that couldn’t be explained that whoever it was, was a threat to his mate. He would not leave her alone like this again, unless she was safely behind locked doors.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned back into a man. Once the change was complete he went up the steps and pulled his jeans back on. He was no closer to knowing how to go forward than he had been when he’d gone for his run. One thing was certain, his protective feelings toward Grace hadn’t dissipated when he’d shed his wolf form. She was his mate, at least for the next year, and he should start acting like it.
He walked toward the back door and put his hand on the handle when he heard the first scream. The door flew open under his hand as his blood slammed through his body. There was no mistaking the terror in Grace’s voice, and a murderous rage came over him. He had to get to her, he had to kill to protect her if need be.
He made it to the bottom of the stairs when the second scream came to him and he took the steps two at a time.
7
She was in her wolf form, running in the woods. The sun was warm on her fur, and the air smelled like summer. This was the happiest she’d ever been, the freest she’d ever felt and she didn’t want this moment to end. Things were perfect in this form, in this moment. She had no worries, no cares, she could simply exist when she was in tune with her inner wolf.
She skidded to a halt on the grass as trees loomed in front of her. A dark cloud passed over the sun and it was twilight. The warmth was sucked out of the air and her muscles vibrated under her fur as she trembled. There was something there, in the trees, just beyond her eyesight.
The smell of rot and death came to her as a grey wolf, with a scar that bisected its eye and made it look like it was covered in a white film. If it was possible for a wolf to grin, this one would be doing it. There was evil in those teeth, there was death in that mouth, and she turned away with a swiftness that could only happen in a dream.
She raced across the grass, with the pounding sound of his paws hitting the ground behind her. The trees loomed around her, as if they too were in cahoots with him. It seemed like their branches were reaching for her, trying to grasp her so the she could be held still for his devouring jaws. He got closer and closer, until she could feel his hot breath on her flanks.
With one last burst of energy, she put on as much speed as she could, but it wasn’t enough. The heat of his breath, the drip of his saliva was upon her when his jaws clamped around her flanks, sending shards of pain through her. Her mouth opened wide to scream but no sound came out. She tried again, but the only sound she could hear were his ecstatic growls as he ripped her apart.
Grace’s heart slammed against her rib cage as she bolted upright. The sound of her scream bounced off the walls as sweat bathed her body. She’d kicked the covers away, and it took a moment for her to remember where she was. A part of her mind was still in the woods, still being chased by the grey wolf.
Her bedroom door flew open and a scream escaped her again as a figure loomed in the doorway. She screamed as she shrank back toward the headboard. How had he found her here?
“Grace.”
That wasn’t his voice, and her heart rate slowed when she finally saw through the haze of terror that had her in its grip. It was Mason who was coming into the room, and in the dim light coming from the hallway she could see that there was a look of concern on his face.
She started trembling and couldn’t make herself stop.
“Baby, are you okay?” He came to sit on the edge of the bed, and reached out to push aside the hair that had fallen in her face.
The touch of his hand had her moving toward him. The old nightmare, one she’d thought she’d finally been free of, had reared its ugly head again and she needed something to cling to. He was so warm and solid that she wanted to take some of that inside herself to give her strength, to make the fear go away.
“Hold me, please.” Her voice came out in a hoarse plea as she went over to where he sat on the edge of the bed.
He put his arms around her, pulling her onto his lap. The skin of his upper body was warm and solid against her, and he smelled like the night air. She put her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook. With her eyes squeezed shut, she concentrated on the warm circles his hands were making on her nightgown covered back. God when she was in the grip of that dream, she always wondered if there would come a time when she would wake from it without her sanity in tact. She would give anything, do anything, to make it so that she never had it again.
“You’re okay. I’m here and nothing bad is going to happen.” His soothing words went a long way to helping her fear subside, and eventually the trembling stopped and she was able to allow her body to relax against him.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.” Her voice was quiet in the stillness of the room. She wasn’t ready to be alone, wasn't ready to face the rest of the night without him.
“I couldn’t sleep. I was out for a run, and when I came back I heard you screaming. I thought someone had gotten to you, and I’m sorry for scaring you even more than you already were when I burst in here. If I’d known you were having a nightmare, I would have been a little more gentle in my approach.”
“It’s not your fault. Anyone would have done the same thing.” But even as she said it, she couldn’t help the warm feeling that spread through her. He’d come in here, not knowing what the threat was, determined to protect her no matter what. He’d always been like that, even when they were little more than kids. She’d never doubted that he would die to protect her, and it appeared that this part of him had not changed.
She was not yet ready to be intimate with him, because if she turned to him now it would be for the wrong reasons. She would be using him to blot out the lingering terror that had taken up residence inside her when she’d been in the throes of her nightmare. When they did become mates through the physical act of love making she wanted the only reason for it to be her desire for him and his for her.
But she didn’t want to be alone for the rest of the night. She didn’t want the nightmare to come back and she knew that she would be afraid to close her eyes and go
to sleep if she didn’t have the comfort of his huge body beside her.
“Do you think you can stay with me? I’ll feel better about going to sleep if you’re here with me. But I should tell you that I’m not ready for anything other than sleep, so if you don’t want to lay with me I’ll understand.”
He tightened his arms around her, and the hair on the top of her head moved as he pressed his lips to it. This was the most affection he’d shown her since she’d come back to town, and perhaps seeing her need of him had loosened some of the anger that had been holding him back from her.
“I’ll stay. When we make love it will be because it is something we both want.” He shifted her off her lap and got up off the bed.
She scooted under the covers and waited while he walked out to the hall on silent feet and shut off the light. Once he’d done that, he came back into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. The room was so dark that she couldn’t see a thing, and she suspected that it was a good thing too, since she could hear the rustle of his clothing as he removed his jeans.
If she’d been able to see his bare body, in all his muscled glory, she was certain that she would have changed her mind about being intimate with him. But it was too soon for that. There was still so much baggage between them, and having him comfort her after a nightmare would not change that.
She shifted over on the bed to make room for him, and he got under the covers with her. He pulled her to him, and settled her head on his chest as he put his arms around her. The beat of his heart was steady under her cheek, and it lulled her into relaxing against him. He had the strength to keep her demons at bay, at least for tonight, and she knew that once she finally fell asleep her nightmares would no longer plague her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice was a low rumble under her ear and she didn’t try to pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about.