by Anna Edwards
"Do you think he knows?"
"Selene hasn't said anything. She was there all the time as well."
"He can't ever know what happened to Heath. Please, Kas."
"I know. Just sort everything out and come here to safety." He could hear her crying at the other end of the phone. He wanted to comfort her.
"I will. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, be careful."
"I will."
The line went dead. He placed his phone back down on the desk. There was still a small mouthful of the scotch in his glass. He picked it up, got to his feet, and he was faced with the picture of him and Nuka on his wall. Hatred burned through his veins. It was never supposed to be this way. He had made a life for his brother, and it was all being thrown back in his face. The only way it would end would be with his brother's death. He threw the glass at the picture. The scotch splattered over the happy, smiling faces of the cubs.
"I have no brother."
***
His head hurt like he'd drunk a whole keg of whiskey and then added another one just to make sure he was drunk. That sort of pain must mean he wasn't dead, only injured. He prayed for quick healing. One eye slowly opened. The room was dimly lit, but he was definitely in his own bed.
"Brayden." Selene's voice echoed from across the room.
"Selene." He tried to sit up.
"No. Don't move. Just rest. I'll get you some water."
"How did we escape?"
"The others came for us."
"How did they get there so quickly?"
"Oh, they didn't." She helped him to sit up a little. “Take a drink and lay back down again."
"Then how did they not kill you? Or are you a ghost? Nobody told me injuries would still hurt in the afterlife."
She laughed.
"I can assure you that you are very much alive, and so am I. I got control of my powers." She held her hand up and shifted it to a wolf's paw, lion's, tiger’s, polar bear’s, then witches’ markings, and finally, she shifted into a snow leopard. The last one she let linger a little longer. "That one is definitely my favorite."
"How did you get control, just like that?”
"It was a very stressful time, and it seems my inner shifter did not like the man who would hurt her mate. When they hit you on the head, all I could think about was getting to your side. Shifting into a snow leopard gave me the ability to do that."
He needed something stronger than water. "We can be together?"
She smiled, a great, beaming one that told him what she was thinking. The smile vanished.
"Although, not until you’re healed."
"Good job I heal fast, then," he purred, and she rolled her eyes.
"Male felines, you think only with one part of your anatomy. I'll go get you some food. Scott went hunting."
"Damn, why didn't I wake sooner. I would have loved to have seen that. But no, I'm not hungry, I'm tired again. Will you just come and let me hold you?"
"No funny business."
"I promise to be at peak physical capacity the first time I mark you."
"Sounds so romantic." He held back the sheets so she could climb into the bed. His arm went around her, and she nestled against his chest. She was touching his skin. He was touching hers. She wasn't changing.
"Brayden?"
"Yes."
"When you were unconscious, I asked Nuka something."
"What?" He kissed the top of her head.
"I asked if he was the one who killed your father."
He tensed.
"What did he say?"
"He said he didn't."
"Did you believe him?"
She swallowed. He felt it against his chest.
"Yes, I did."
If Nuka didn't kill his father, then who did?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She woke up to warmth wrapped around her. Skin touching her skin. She and Brayden had spent their first night together in each other’s arms. She could see his breathing remained shallow. He was still sleeping, and the last thing she wanted to do was wake him. Trying her hardest to get out of the bed, a calloused hand caught her arm and pulled her up against a rock-hard body.
"Where do you think you’re going?"
"I was going to get you a drink and look at changing the bandages when you woke."
He put his head up and shook like a cat drying itself. The bandages came off and revealed a perfectly healed face. Even his hair was back at its former long length.
"Or maybe just remove the bandages?"
He growled and pressed against her. She felt his very hard and very large erection. It was time.
"I will take it slow for you, but I need to know now. If you have any doubts about being my mate, you must speak now, or it will be too late."
Doubts? Did she have any? She'd been created for good, she knew that, but she also happened to think that she'd been designed for Brayden. He would fit her perfectly and vice versa.
"No doubts." Her answer may have sounded a little more desperate than she had planned.
He flipped her onto her back and rose before her.
"I'm sick of having something between us. The clothes need to go. You are not to wear any again until I say you can." He pulled her T-shirt over her head and began to shuffle her bottoms down her legs. He inhaled a long breath when his head was level with her hips and his eyes focused on her sex.
"Wet already, I like it."
She wasn't just wet, but dripping. She needed him inside her.
"Brayden, please?"
He chuckled. "Desperate?"
She couldn't lie. "Extremely."
"I've no intention of just a quick fumble. I’ve wanted my mouth on your flesh for so long, I'm going to savor every second."
He brought his lips down on hers, tenderly at first, but then his tongue demanded admittance to her mouth. She was lost to the passionate exchange of tongues twisting and searching. He pulled away, and she sighed dejectedly, but that turned into a groan when he wrapped his talented lips around one of her peaked nipples. In her mind, her creator had seen fit to give her perfect breasts, not too big and not too small. Just what she needed and oh, oh, oh...so, so sensitive nipples. He grazed his teeth over the right one while twisting the left. She arched her back off the bed.
"Fuck." Selene was close to orgasm already. Brayden purred his satisfaction and ground his hips into her thigh. He moved his mouth lower down her body, his teeth nipping into her flesh. Each touch was like an earthquake pulsating through her body. Only Brayden could make her feel this way. He parted her legs and licked up her thighs, interspersing it with bites. He hovered above where she really needed him, to touch her, the most.
"I'm going to wear this scent for the rest of my life. Not only will you be marked as mine, I'll be marked as yours."
"Always."
He parted the petals of her sex with his hands and drove his tongue through her slit to her clitoris. She was almost off the bed again, her hands shifting to paws so she could grip the sheets. He lapped up her juices, mewling contentment as he went.
She could barely breathe. Her whole body felt like it was on fire. She undulated in need, burning for the explosion she knew would come.
"Brayden." She could barely talk. "More."
He twisted his fingers inside her to a soft spot that made her even less able to control herself.
"Come for me, Selene. Only for me." He bit down on her clit and pressed his fingers against the tender spot inside her.
She came apart. She called out his name, shaking and quaking like she was a bundle of euphoric nerve endings. She couldn't focus. She couldn't even open her eyes. The sheets were ripped to shreds, but all she cared about was the orgasm she was riding. What seemed like hours later, she came down; gasping for breath with aftershocks causing tremors in her legs.
"You are the most amazing sight when you come." Brayden removed his fingers from inside her and brought them to her lips to taste.
"I want to taste you."
; He gave a shit-eating grin.
"I was hoping you would say that." Brayden lay back on the bed.
She hesitantly took hold of his cock. He was already so hard beneath the skin of her hand. She struggled to fit her hand around the full girth. He curved bigger in the center of his shaft before tapering down to the tip. The head was purple and looked like it was pulsating. Brayden placed his hands over hers and helped her establish a rhythm with her stroke.
"The touch of snow," she whispered.
His hands left hers, and he placed them behind his head. She could wait no longer to taste him. Bending over, she allowed her tongue to flick over the tip. Then she licked him again. This time down the length and back up. His penis was sensitive. Shifting her tongue to that of a cat she licked. He groaned out a long rumbling response.
"Holy shit."
She pushed him into her mouth in the next movement. He was so big.
She alternated licks around his shaft with circling her lips up and down it. Every now and then she would flick the head of his cock.
"Teach me more."
"Use one of your hands on my balls. Caress them. They are particularly sensitive so don’t squeeze too hard."
She cupped the jewels within her hand and massaged them. She wondered what they tasted like, and realized when Brayden hissed that he'd heard her thought. She laughed around his cock, the reverberations seeming to make him swell within her mouth. She let him out with a pop and sucked on one of his balls while stroking his length. Her grip was hard and twisting.
"Babe. I'm going to come. You have to stop."
"I want to taste you."
"Do you not want me inside you? I don't know if I can do both, not with the healing."
She let go of him.
"Well then. I choose to have you inside me. We've got plenty of time for a gourmet tasting session later. We've got a whole lifetime for that.”
"You're not fertile at the moment. Do you want to go without a condom?"
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Male cats are primed to tell. I've got condoms in the drawer."
"What about diseases and things like that?"
"I'm clean. I know you are clean."
"Then I want to be with you skin on skin. We've had enough barriers to touching in our life already."
Brayden moved over her and settled between her parted thighs. She felt him at her entrance and then the pressure of his penis pushing in. She tried to relax, but he filled her so fully. She felt a snap of temporary pain indicating she was no longer a virgin. She'd given a precious gift to her mate.
“Am I hurting you?”
She wasn’t in pain, she just felt full and happy. He changed his angle, and his cock slid against her engorged clit. That was all it took. She climaxed again. Her body shook around his dick. When she looked at Brayden his fangs had appeared, and he was biting down on his lip.
"Sorry," she captured her breath and spoke.
"Don't ever apologize for taking pleasure,” he snarled at her. "This mating works both ways, Selene. You will forever me mine and I'll forever be yours, as well. You want my body to get you off. You take it. I'll never say no."
He pulled his hips back and thrust back in. She gasped out loud. "Can you come again for me?"
Fucking yeah she could. She could come all day and all night. She might not walk again but hey, who needed to move around? She could fly, anyway. She was already doing that with Brayden inside her.
She rotated her hips to give Brayden his answer. He pulled her legs around his body and took her animalistic thrusts. Her hands wrapped around his thick, corded neck. She needed him closer. She needed him so deep inside her that he would never leave; she would forever feel him there. Her nails changed to jet black talons and embedded themselves with the taut flesh of his back.
His cock was hitting that special place inside her. She was going to come again. She could barely focus. She couldn't breathe.
"Selene, will you be my mate?"
"Yes. Yes." She came again, floating on a cloud of pure bliss. Brayden bit down on her shoulder, marking her. His mate. His. She flew even higher. His name left her mouth in a powerful roar. That set Brayden off, and he released within her, flooding her with his scent. Another mark that she was his.
Slowly they recovered. Her shoulder ached, but it was a pleasant ache. It was one that labelled her as finally part of a family. Finally, she was something, someone who belonged.
A knock came to the door. "Jessica wondered if Selene needs cream for the marking?"
"Fuck off Tyler," Brayden roared
There was another snigger outside the door.
"And you Scott," she added.
"Seriously. Kas says to get your asses downstairs for breakfast, or he'll come up and get you. We've got to do the whole welcoming Selene to the family thing."
"We'll be down soon." Brayden pulled her into his arms and grinned. "Just as soon as I've done that all over again. We've got lost time to make up for."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Deeper baby. Deeper. Take more down your throat." Brayden had his hand wrapped around Selene's hair, and she was sucking him off in the seat of his Mustang in the middle of Death Valley. "Oh yes. Oh God. I'm going to come. You still want to taste me?"
"You try to pull my head away, and I'm releasing my fangs."
He pushed his head back against the seat and allowed himself to relax. Selene took him deep, and he couldn't hold back any longer. His balls drew up, and he released himself down her throat. She took every last drop of him before licking him clean.
He watched her while she reapplied her lipstick. She was exquisite in his eyes. His vision of beauty. His mate.
"What time is he due?"
"Anytime now."
They were back in Death Valley, a week after their mating, to meet the only other multi-shifter that would talk to her. Ethern Lennox. He'd insisted on having the meeting here, which didn't appeal to Brayden.
"We better get out."
"Do we have to?" The second he got out of the car, he would be melting again.
Selene opened her bag and pulled out a little fan. "Here. It's the best I can do, I'm afraid. At least it will keep you cool until we can get you back in the car."
"You're the greatest mate ever."
"I know."
The heat hit him the second he opened the door.
"Once this meeting is done, we're never coming back to this place. If you want a holiday, we're going to Antarctica. No arguments."
"I thought we could go see where your family originate from in India when we have time."
"That… I might consider."
He stood behind her, his hands around her waist.
"Already?"
"I can't help it. You're in heat. Blame the snow leopard, not me."
"Your relationship seems to be solidified already. It's good to see." A man in a dark cloak appeared before them.
"Selene, Brayden. I'm Ethern. It is a pleasure to meet you." The posh-spoken Brit held his hand out. Selene shook it without hesitance, but Brayden held back.
"Brayden?" Selene questioned.
"Have you changed to a snow leopard before?"
"I have. Do not worry. I'll not be collecting your power today. I'm merely being polite."
Brayden reached out and shook his hand.
"It's good to meet you as well. What can you tell us about Selene?"
"Straight to business. No small talk first?"
"It’s over hundred degrees out here. I'm sweating in places I didn’t know existed. Unless you want to conduct this meeting in the car, I don't think we need small talk."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"Come this way." Ethern led them further into the park, over the sand dunes to a canyon buried deep within a mountain, the intricate stonework carved over eons by nature.
"This is where you were created." He knelt down and placed his hand on a burnt patch of earth glo
wing in the sun's rays. "It’s still hot to touch after almost nine months. That was the power of your creation." Selene stepped forward and placed her on hand on the spot.
"How do you create someone like me?"
"Magic. Very powerful magic, born from Mother Nature herself. All living multi-shifters met here and performed the ceremony. You will be involved in one too, one day, when we need another."
"Why do you create? Can we not produce naturally?" Brayden found a spot in the shade and leaned back against the wall.
"Several male multi-shifters have bred, but their offspring take the form of their partners."
"Do you have a partner and child?"
"My work keeps me busy, so I've not had a chance."
"So, any children Brayden and I have will take the form of a snow leopard?"
"Again, on that, we can only speculate. We don’t know. You are unique. The only female."
"Why was I created female? Did you choose it?"
Ethern turned away from her. "What we did was new. We didn’t even know if it would work. I pleaded with the others and they accepted. All I knew is that I had to protect their hopes for you. "
"What do you mean?"
"As well as being created, you were born."
"Born? The baby in my dreams. It was me?"
"You remember?"
"A mother and father, happy. I couldn’t see their faces, but I know they adored me. Then darkness and tears. An empty cot. My mother told me love is my control. The love I have for Brayden."
"Death is cruel, beyond belief sometimes. He promised you would not be caused pain by this." He looked to the sky as if cursing someone. Brayden stepped forward, brought Selene into his arms, and she melted against him.
"Death came for her."
"There was nothing your parents could do. They were not magical, they were human. I'd been friends with them for several years. Your father knew of the realm in which we exist. He was a brilliant scientist and had been working with a group of volunteer shifters to try and discover more about our genetic make-up. I was one of these people. To know I was never born has always troubled me. I wanted to know more about what I truly was."
"I can relate to that."