by T. S. Joyce
“Who would beat the shit out of Nox?”
Candace snorted. “That, too. We need you. I need you, but you have to do better than this. You don’t keep yourself in check, and you push for more and more power, and what does that do for you?”
“Feels good.”
“Up until the point you lose everything.”
HavoK scratched his lip and let off a low, unhappy-sounding rumble. “I don’t like rules. I like to make them or break them.”
“Then we’ll call it compromise. Three.”
“Three times a day?” HavoK barked.
“That’s way more than any other shifter I’ve ever met, so quit your belly-achin’.”
“That’s half the time I get now.”
“But consider the quality of time, HavoK. You’ve spent how long out here beating up trees? Is this the time you fight for? Time away from me?”
“Four.”
“Three,” she said in a stern voice.
HavoK opened his mouth and roared, then paced away and back. “You want Torren.”
“I want both sides of Torren. The man and you.”
“No, because you try and tuck me away. I checked if you were breathing this morning. Me. Last night, I pulled that silverback off you. Me!”
“I love you!”
HavoK skidded to a stop in the snow, smearing red with his knuckles. After a few loaded seconds, he demanded, “Explain love.”
The wind was picking up and it was getting colder, so she pulled her jacket tighter around her torso. “Okay…love is worrying over someone. It’s putting them above yourself. It’s smiling when they smile because their happiness makes you happy. It’s wanting a future with them and working to make them okay so you can both have that future. It’s wanting to know if they are sad so you can hug them and make it better. It’s crying when they say something nice because you feel joy they really see you when no one else does. It’s not being invisible. It’s sleeping beside them and having a bad dream, so you wake up to check if they’re breathing. Because if they weren’t, it would feel like you weren’t breathing. It’s a feeling that when everything is falling apart, they can fix it just by looking at you. A single look, and you know everything will be okay. Love is feeling safe with someone.”
While she’d spoken, HavoK had stopped fidgeting and had become still like a statue. His attention had drifted to her mouth and stayed there as she formed her words. And when she was finished, he frowned. “You feel these things about me?”
With a smile, Candace nodded. “And it’s also standing out in the freezing cold at dawn just on the off-chance I can bring you back to warm me up in bed.”
His frown grew deeper. “You shiver.”
In an effort to keep him on track, she made her voice stern again and said, “Three times a day. No more. I need both sides of you to be steady because I’ve lost a lot. I lost my mom and my dad, and now it’s just me out in the world if you aren’t here to tether me to you, and to the crew. I don’t want to be alone again. Don’t let that happen.”
She turned on her heel and made her way back through the woods, following the tracks she’d made. Already they were filling with snow. It hurt walking away, but she’d put everything out there, and now the animal half of the man she loved would need to make his own decisions.
Quit or stay, just like the decision she’d had to make.
“Candace,” Torren said.
Startled by his human voice, she jerked her gaze up from the snow where she’d been carefully stepping. And there he was. Skin pale, tattoo ink stark against the snowy background. His knuckles were already healing but still looked painful. His eyes were hollow and exhausted.
“You’ve been fighting with yourself,” she said.
He nodded once, slowly. “Different kind of fight from last night. The physical ones are easier.”
“Are you there at all? When HavoK takes over. Do you see and feel what’s happening?”
“Sometimes more than others. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it’s like I went to sleep and I wake up and my body hurts.” His bare feet made deep prints in the snow as he approached.
He slid his arms around her and hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet. “You’re terrifying.”
“Me? Why?” she asked, wrapping her arms and legs around him, and holding on. She didn’t want him to put her down. Hell, she could stay like this forever. Just them and the silent falling snow and the winter woods of Vyr’s Mountains.
“Because now I have something to lose. Something big. Before, I had already accepted the break HavoK was making in me. Now I want to fight it, but I don’t know how. You’re scary because I can let you down, and I don’t want to. I had accepted my fate, but now I don’t want what’s happening to me, or to my gorilla.”
“Then stay,” she said simply. Candace eased back and ran her fingertips down his beard. “Stay with me. You and HavoK both. We’re going to figure it out, me and you. And the crew.”
Torren snorted. “That entire crew is fucked up and not at a point where they can help anyone else.”
“Not anyone else, just crew.” She grinned and slid down his body, settled on her knees in the snow but kept her eyes on him.
There was a wicked twinkle in Torren’s green eyes now. “What are you doing?”
“Tempting you to try harder.”
“Mmmm. I like when you say harder.” He snarled up his lip and gripped the back of her hair roughly.
Sexy, dominant man. He had so many layers. Rugged brawler on the outside and vulnerable man desperate to stay steady on the inside. Big, muscular, tattooed beast, body humming with power as his eyes sparked an even brighter green. He was hard already, so she gripped him and slid her hand down his shaft. Torren let off a soft rumbling sound and urged her face closer.
She’d already won. He didn’t look tired and beaten anymore. He even felt stronger to her again. Confident. Stable. Hungry.
Candace slid her mouth over him, hand at his hilt because he was too big to take all at once.
He gave off a shaky, “Fuuuck,” as she applied more pressure with her tongue.
She kept the pace steady, and he was good. He was gripping her hair but not forcing her. He was letting her do what she wanted. Good mate. She wanted to take care of him right now and make him forget about losing control.
When Candace dug her nails into his powerful outer thigh, he grunted a sexy noise, and his muscles twitched. Her name came like a prayer to his lips as she pushed him closer to release. He was moving with her now, body shaking, muscles flexed, dick hard in her mouth. He tasted so good, and she looked up at him just to see the expression of pure intensity as he watched her suck him off. She felt powerful, having such control over a monster of a man like this. He might be the new king, the new Kong, but she was his queen, and queens had more power than people realized. It was subtle power. Quiet power.
Torren’s hand gripped her hair harder, and she moaned at how good it felt. His little signs of lost control set her body on fire. God, she loved turning him on. He thrust deeper into her throat. Deep, deep, deep and then he pulled out of her mouth suddenly with a muttered curse. He dropped to his knees and pushed her back against the snow, shoved her sleep shirt up her thighs, grabbed his dick, and pushed inside of her. He didn’t prepare her for his size, but she was ready. She’d been so excited while she’d had her mouth on him, her body had been begging for him to bury himself just like this. He filled her, stretching her in an instant as he drove deep, then deep again and again.
The pressure was building so fast it was blinding. All consuming. She raked her fingernails down his back and wasn’t careful. She dug deep, and they both arched their backs. When Torren looked back down at her, his eyes were on fire. Hungry, hungry man, and she was the one who fed his soul. She could see it. See her value as he laid his weight on her and pounded into her, faster, harder. His hand drifted from her hip to her thigh, and he yanked her leg up higher, then gripped it hard enough that h
is fingers dug in. It felt so good. Pleasure and pain. Rough boy. Fuck, how had she lived without this connection for so long? Without Torren?
He slammed into her harder, and she was done. She was a grenade, and he’d pulled the pin on her the second he’d slid into her. Her body shattered around him, pulsing deep and hard just as he bucked into her and froze. His dick throbbed deep inside her, filling her with warmth. He pushed in again—throb—again—throb. She threw her head back and moaned as her orgasm intensified.
Suddenly, before he was done with his release, Torren yanked out of her and took himself in hand, shoved her shirt up her stomach, and finished across her bare chest.
“You’re mine,” he growled, his face twisted and feral. “My mate. My family group.”
Sexy. The perfect balance of monster and man, and yeah, she was his. She had been since the second she saw him in Vyr’s mansion.
Her animal had picked, and she’d always been a loyal soul. No matter what the future held, their fates were tied in an impossible knot now. And she had no regrets, because this ache in her chest was something she thought she would never feel. It was something she thought would never happen to a damaged girl like her.
He was building their bond, one touch at a time. One sigh, one smile, one laugh, one nickname, one good experience, one hard experience at a time. He’d let her see the gritty parts, and deep down, she knew he didn’t do that for anyone else.
He was king on his own terms.
And from here on, she would be his queen on hers.
Chapter Twelve
“I have a surprise for you,” Candace said, smiling at Torren’s profile as he drove them through Vyr’s woods.
Torren jerked his gaze to hers, but she couldn’t read his expression. “Are you pregnant?”
“What?” she asked too loud. “No!”
There was a flash of something—disappointment—right before he forced a smile and said, “I was just kidding.” That sounded like a lie, though.
After a few stunned moments, she murmured, “Torren, is that something you want?”
He shrugged and turned up the rock music in his Camaro. “It’s whatever.”
Candace adjusted the box in her lap and turned in the seat to see him better. He’d carefully constructed his face into a mask of ambivalence. She turned the volume down. “Don’t throw this conversation away. I’m not opposed to having a baby. I just didn’t know you would want to try so soon. You surprised me.”
Torren’s Adam’s apple dipped into his thick throat as he draped one hand over the steering wheel and slid the other to her thigh, his favorite way to drive. “It’s something I think about. I know we’re new to being mates and you’re just moving in. We’re figuring out our lives together and with the crew. But sometimes when HavoK feels out of control, like he’s going to break your three-Changes-a-day rule, I think of you holding a little baby. A baby I put in you. And the gorilla settles because he wants that someday, too.”
Candace was completely stunned. And elated. She wanted to cry from happiness. It had been three weeks since he’d claimed her, and today had been one of the happiest days of her life already because he’d asked her to let go of the lease on her little, bug-infested apartment and make a home with him in the mansion. She’d practically been living there anyway since that first fight with those silverbacks. Since then, he’d secured a job running security at Jem’s, made her job and life safe without chasing off customers, and she’d been at every fight, at his back, supporting him as he did what he had to do to keep HavoK steady. Days were spent with the man she’d fallen in love with, and with the crew. Day by day, she was growing closer to these crazies that she somehow understood. Her life was moving in the right direction, finally, because of Torren. And now he’d just told her he wanted to put a baby inside her. She’d asked her questions and done her research. Torren was a big, dominant gorilla shifter, and him saying he was ready to add to their little family group was a big deal. He really was trying to stay strong for her.
She slipped her hand over his and admitted something she’d felt for a while. “I know we haven’t said it out loud yet, but I love you, you know?”
Torren eased onto the brakes and pulled them to a slow stop, careful of the icy road. His smile was stunning as he looked over at her. “You told me the other day.”
Candace gasped. “When?”
“In your sleep.”
“Don’t play.”
“I’m serious. You talk in your sleep, and it’s so fucking cute. You know how I know you love me?”
“How?”
“Because even in your sleep, when you don’t have to touch me, you do. And you tell me sweet things. And you purr.”
Candace’s cheeks heated with mortification. “I do not.”
“You so do. I fucking love it. Sometimes I wake up just to ask you questions or watch you sleep. Listen to you purr when I touch your hip or brush your hair out of your face. I told you I love you, too. You did this little smile and whispered, “I know.” He made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “Wildcat, you think you know everything—even when you’re unconscious.”
“Well, I do,” she said, ducking his tickling fingers as she laughed. She settled against the back of the seat and muttered, “Crap. Saying that for the first time is a big deal and I slept through it.” She frowned at the front window. “You distracted me. I had a surprise and you derailed it.”
A deep chuckle rumbled in Torren’s chest. “Okay, I’ll be good. Give me.”
Candace pulled the three twenties out of her back pocket and handed it to him.
Torren frowned at the money and shook his head. “I don’t understand. I’m not asking you to pay rent. I’ve got us.”
“It’s for Genevieve.”
His bright gaze jerked to her face. He searched her eyes for a few moments before he took the twenties slowly. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’ve been doing good at work, and I paid the bills for this month. Now that I’m not paying for the apartment, I can help with your sister’s cochlear implant fund. I mean, I know it’s not a lot—”
“Stop. This is a lot, Candace.” He shook his head and looked at her like she was everything. That expression on his face? It made butterflies flap around in her stomach. “I know how hard you work for every penny, and I know what it costs you to work that job. This?” He lifted the sixty bucks. “This means more than I can even tell you.”
“We’ll do it as a team,” she said softly. “Someday she’s gonna hear your voice, and I’ll be so proud of you for getting there.”
“We’ll do everything as a team. I can’t wait for you to meet my sister and her mate, Greyson. And my parents. They all love you already because I can’t stop talking about you. You’ve changed my whole life for the better.”
“Even though I get stripper glitter all over everything?”
Torren belted a laugh. “My life is a lot more sparkly, that’s for sure.”
He leaned over the seat and cupped her neck, pulled her to him, and pressed his lips against hers. Usually they were fire and gasoline when they touched, but sometimes, on occasion, Torren would go all soft like this. For her. She loved him both ways. She loved him just as he was.
There was something so freeing about loving someone just as they were, mess and all, and knowing they would return that acceptance in kind. What a beautiful thing not to have to ever pretend. What was the point when Torren was okay with everything? Her job, her animal, her emotional days, her damage, her fear of losing him. He looked at those things like he thought they were beautiful, and she did the same for him. His fighting, his inner beast, his protectiveness, his devotion to Vyr, his damage. He was perfect to her, shaped exactly right to match her unconventional edges.
He sipped at her lips for a long time, and she melted into him. Let him take his time, let him keep them slow, while she reveled in his soft touches on her cheek, her neck, her hand, her thigh.
But there was this momen
t when chills rippled up her arms. And when Torren eased away with a frown, she knew he’d felt it, too.
He scanned the woods out the window and turned the radio all the way down. He sat there frozen, just like her, listening for something just beyond their heightened senses.
“I feel watched,” she admitted on a breath.
“Same,” Torren rumbled. He rolled down his window and rested his elbow on the open frame, chewed the corner of his thumbnail as he stared out into the woods, listening. “It’s too quiet.”
“It’s always quiet in the winter, though,” she said optimistically.
“Mmm,” he murmured. He eased onto the gas, but as they drove, he kept his window down and his attention on the woods like she did.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, though. No tracks, no movement, and the closer they got to the mansion, the less her instincts blared.
“Animal maybe?”
“Maybe,” Torren said. He flicked two fingers toward the house where Vyr was sitting on the roof, eyes on the woods, one knee bent, one leg dangling over the edge of the gutter. “But then why is the Red Dragon watching the woods, too?”
“Okay. Playing the devil’s advocate, Vyr sits up there a lot, and I have a theory about it. I think the ground isn’t his home. It’s not his happy place. He only allows himself to shift every three weeks, right? Imagine if you forced HavoK to stay silent for three weeks at a time. You would feel all broken up and confused. I think Vyr sits up in the air because it makes his dragon more comfortable. Plus, look. The rest of the crew doesn’t seem concerned.” She pointed to where Nox and Nevada were sitting in duct-taped lawn chairs in the snow, facing each other, spitting a piece of gum back and forth between them, catching it in their mouths. They cheered each other on each time they caught it.
“God, their love is so weird,” Torren muttered.
“Yep.” Candace scrunched her face up. “I feel like we could take them, though.”
Torren was staring at them with narrowed eyes. “I was just thinking the same thing. Do you have a piece of gum?”