by Claire Ryann
The sound that he made was more growl than groan. It sounded like the possessive growl of a dog-- or a wolf-- claiming its property.
Haley's body responded to the sound with an urgent need to feel him inside her. She rocked against his mouth, "Oh God, Daelan, I want you."
His response was to torture her slowly. His tongue dragged along her folds as his fingers held her open against his mouth. He started slow as if he meant to draw out her anticipation until she died from need.
"Your pussy smells so good," he mumbled between laps of his tongue.
Haley was surprised at the sudden surge of heat that ran through her when he spoke. She'd never had a man talk to her like that. It was hot.
Her reaction spurred him on. His mouth locked onto her, his tongue lashing against her clit while she writhed against him. His beard was soft against her inner thighs and just as Haley felt herself about to shatter, his fingers slid easily into her. Pushing against her walls and thrusting in time with her movements.
Stars exploded behind her eyes for what seemed like ever.
Daelan's tongue was running over her still, pausing for each aftershock that rippled her body, "I could drink your juices all night," he said in a voice raspy with lust, "but I need to get inside you for just a little while first."
He moved and held himself above her, "I love you, Haley," he whispered as she felt him slide into her.
Haley pulled the edge of the blanket around her and snuggled up against Daelan. She watched the embers glowing red, his profile silhouetted between her and the fireplace.
The latest storm raged outside. The power was still out but with Daelan here, she didn't mind. She braced herself on her elbow and stared down at him, watching him sleep peacefully.
She touched his face, letting her finger move down his nose and over his lips. Then she traced his jaw, firm and square under the red beard that covered it.
He told her he loved her and she didn't doubt it for a minute. Even though they'd known each other for less than 48 hours, she felt like she'd known him all her life. Being in his arms felt like coming home. It was the feeling she'd been so desperate for when she'd convinced herself that Rodney was her happily ever after.
Rodney had never made her feel like this though. Not once. Not even a little bit.
Haley played back everything that Daelan had told her with a worried frown furrowing her chin.
An entire pack of werewolves might want her dead. Just because she wasn't one of them. Just because their leader loved her.
It didn't seem fair.
From what Daelan had told her, it wasn't a simple matter of choosing your mate. There was someone out there, just for you and when that person crossed your path there was no denying them.
It was all very romantic. Except for the part where he explained that his people lived for an average of a thousand years and that he, himself, was already well into his second century, and he couldn't remember any time in his pack's history that a member had taken a human mate.
That's a long time.
In the morning, Daelan was leaving her to go back to his den and face his people.
She would have to stay here by herself with no power and no way to get to town.
Haley wrapped her arm around him and lay her head on his chest. For all she knew, one whole day was all she would ever have with the man she was meant to love forever.
16
"So it's true?"
Daelan nodded grimly, confirming Rek's fears.
The big man shook his head soberly, the worry plain on his features.
"You know there's going to be opposition, right?"
Daelan nodded, "That's why I'm here. I'm not bringing her anywhere near them until I know she'll be safe."
The two men trudged through the snow toward the tiny village nestled into the mountains. Rek had met him a few miles from the den's perimeter and they had walked together as men the rest of the way to discuss the matter.
"Well word has already gotten around, you know Ken can't keep a secret to save his hide."
Daelan laughed, "I knew that when I sent them back. Didn't seem like it mattered much if I told the elders myself or if I walked into an ambush."
Rek slapped his Alpha on the back with a laugh of his own, "There's lots of grumbling around the den, but the only ambush I had to hold off was from Leena."
"Yeah, I bet she's pissed."
The she-wolf was approaching heat and with the Alpha unmated, he'd been her primary target for the last few months. She was still young and had plenty of years ahead of her to find her mate.
"She won't have any trouble finding someone else to focus on, I'm sure," Daelan said.
"True. Not with so many bachelors in the pack. She's got her pick," Rek agreed. His words were light but his voice sounded as heavy as their footsteps as the den appeared in the distance.
Both men came to a stop without speaking a word.
The den had grown into a small village. To anyone else, it might look like a tiny resort. The main lodge had been built with its back into the solid granite mountain face. It was a big wooden structure with multiple stories and one central entry. From the outside, it looked very much like one of the grand hotels found in Yosemite.
Inside, it also resembled a hotel. A high entry way with sweeping staircases leading to the upper floors before the arched entry to the main hall. The lower floor was where the meeting rooms, the kitchens, and the big dining hall that could sit the entire pack was located.
The upper rooms were private quarters for nearly half the pack. Pretty much anyone who hadn't chosen to build their own private home still lived in the communal house.
The Alpha's quarters were down a hallway on one side. Private but still part of the lodge.
The lodge stretched back much farther than was visible from outside, dug deep into the rock of the mountain, filling the space that had been the pack's ancestral home for the last several centuries.
From where they stood, Daelan could see the big lodge house where it stood at the dead end of the den's center court.
Also much like a hotel. The main street-- the only street-- that ran through the den ended at the entrance of the main house in a cobble stone courtyard that formed a large circular drive looping back onto the road.
They had left a portion of the forest raw in the middle of the courtyard, a wooded place that was kept carefully maintained for festivals and gatherings.
The private homes lined the road on both sides. Maybe 20 altogether so far with plenty of room for more.
Daelan had always felt such pride looking at what the den had become since he'd been chosen to lead the pack. It had been him who had returned from his years among humans and convinced the old timers to build the big lodge. To move their people out of the caves and into homes that were less likely to draw the curiosity of humans.
It had given the younger generations a chance to shift more often and spend more time in human form so that now all but the oldest members of the pack spent much of their time on two feet instead of four.
Living as humans meant more thumbs available for building the houses and maintaining the asphalt. For keeping bees and making honey and mead. For brewing beer and curing meats. For installing power poles and wind turbines to generate electricity and for installing satellite dishes that brought the Internet and other entertainment to the den.
A healthy amount of time spent as humans had built their pack to a self-sufficient town that was able to earn the money it needed from the honey and beer and wild game jerky that it produced.
Now the pack had a website and an online store and they took their goods into town to sell at farmers' markets and in small stores that thrived on tourist dollars.
He had made so much progress. They no longer had to live in fear of the occasional human wandering into their territory, if someone arrived in the den's small hamlet, it was easy enough to greet them as humans and get them turned back toward the main highway.
&n
bsp; Daelan sighed heavily. He had hoped his biggest fight with the council this year was going to be convincing them to open the den up for a festival next summer. To hold a brewfest featuring their own beer and mead and invite the public into their home.
Maybe it would help dispel some of the rumors that the pack was a cult. Those were the newest rumors that had been circulating in the small towns that dotted the boundaries of their territory.
Convincing the elders that they needed to be less secretive was an uphill battle. They needed to stop giving the humans reasons to snoop around.
"Do you have any idea what they're going to do?" Daelan asked his Beta.
"No. They've been extremely secretive. The elders have spent much of their time talking among themselves since Lowell and Ken returned."
"What do you think?"
Rek had been his best friend since childhood. The big man was rough around the edges, with a liking for things more on the traditional side himself. He was also intelligent, educated, and had a fierce sense of fairness.
They made a good team and Daelan treasured Rek as both his friend and his second in command. He was curious to know Rek's own feelings on the matter.
Rek's face was a hard frown as he avoided eye contact with his friend and Alpha. "I think it was not a decision you could make. Everyone knows mates are brought to us by Fate." He cleared his throat and began closing the distance to the den, "It wasn't your choice."
Daelan stared at his friend's back as Rek took the lead. Daelan wasn't sure he'd been ready to finish their conversation yet. He swallowed his impulse to check his Beta, however. He had never led this pack with the iron fist of a tyrant. Bek was his equal in all but title.
Daelan caught up and over took Rek's pace easily enough, asserting his position as Alpha. In minutes, his feet left the deep snow and his boots landed on the plowed walkway that lined the den's street.
He did his best to return the greetings of his people as he walked proudly toward the great hall where a small percentage of his pack would decide his fate.
17
Why he thought he could make these people see reason was beyond him. He'd been arguing for hours. His throat was raw and twice his wolf had surged forth to tangle with someone.
"She knows. We can't allow her to betray us," Sandalius stood and turned his back on his Alpha. It was a bold show of defiance. Disrespectful in its suggestion that his Alpha was too weak to attack and didn't require his attention.
Daelan's blood boiled. He fought back the wolf that was gnashing and snarling at the audacity of the man's defiance. The wolf had little sense of democracy, it knew it was the Alpha here and it sought to put anyone who threatened its mate in check.
"I propose a hunt," Sandalius turned slowly and aimed a dark grin at his Alpha, "Perhaps that would free our Alpha from his predicament." The man's voice dripped in thinly veiled hate, barely concealing his eagerness for human blood.
Daelan clenched his jaw.
His wolf didn't want to put this man in "check," it wanted him in the ground.
The growl that pushed past his lips was not human as his eyes narrowed on the man who had dared such a suggestion.
Sandalius was the youngest of the elders. Slightly older than Daelan's father would have been. It was no secret that the old man's wolf had a taste for human blood and missed the days of war with the humans when it had taken pleasure in adding to the reputation that weres were evil.
The room held 12 souls, 7 of whom made up the oldest members of the pack. 2 of the elders watched as wolves.
Daelan had been working to balance the council with younger members with more modern ideas in hopes of finding some sort of equilibrium in the governing of the pack. Now he looked out at the faces of his delegates and saw only opposition. Even those who looked at him with sympathy did so through eyes that told the tale of a pack that was unsure of such a big change.
Rek's strong hand grasped his shoulder with a force that overstepped a beta's bounds, holding him in his seat even as his wolf threatened another appearance.
"Easy, Day," Rek's deep voice was low and calm beside him, "you gotta keep talking here, man, your wolf is outnumbered."
Daelan knew it was true. Letting his wolf go now was going get him out of the alpha position all right-- permanently. He fought the animal back. Knowing what would happen to his mate if he failed here was an icy river in his veins. It did nothing to calm his wolf but the beast retreated in understanding of what was at stake.
"Under no circumstances will I allow my mate to be harmed," he spat through clenched teeth.
"If my pack is not willing to accept that my mate-- the woman brought to me by the Great Mother herself to bear my young-- is human, then I will relinquish my role as your Alpha and I will gladly leave the den as well. As long as no harm is done to her."
He choked on each word. "Gladly" was a bald face lie. The idea of being exiled from his home and his pack-- his family-- was unbearable. If it was what was required to secure Haley's life, then so be it.
"Deh-lahn," Leyrh, an ancient woman who had outlived the memory of everyone else in the pack, shifted out of the gray wolf that had been patiently listening this far and spoke up. She pronounced his name in her ancient dialect, adding emphasis to the last syllable and drawing it out.
"Yes, Leyrh," he acknowledged her respectfully while the room went silent.
"I am one thousand, three hundred, and four years in this pack." Her eyes were gray like the winter sky, her hair whiter than the snow that had been falling for the last 2 days. Her skin was dark with the sun and wind of so many seasons, but her voice was steady and her mind was sharp, "There has never been a human mate in all that time. Why do you think the Great Mother would bring you a human mate?"
Still in silence, every head in the room turned toward Daelan.
They had been in here for 7 hours so far and Leyrh's question was the first one that suggested an open mind. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat without appearing nervous.
It was a hell of a question.
Legend was that at the end of the first age the mother of earth itself had gathered the humans who had pleased her most and given each one a gift. She had paired each of her favored humans with the animal that suited them the best and taught them how to shift between forms in order to best honor their new spirit.
Shifters were both human and animal but altogether something new as well. Each shifter type has the ability to share its gift animal with other humans. Throughout the ages some shifters have honored their animal as a gift while others have thrown it about casually or worse-- forced it on humans unexpectedly.
But one thing that seemed constant was that all shifter-types had mates. Fated mates. A true love that was meant just for them. That your life and your mate's life would be carefully orchestrated to make sure you were brought together at just the right time.
Some were fortunate enough to spend life times with those mates. Some mateships were doomed to be tragically short. But all were fated by the Great Mother, the spirit of the earth.
Leyrh's question had merit. How could it be that for over a thousand years of pack history, not a single member had been mated to a human and when it did happen, it just happened to be their Alpha?
Daelan gave his answer careful consideration while a low murmur rose in the room. His wolf's keen hearing caught bits and pieces of conversation among his colleagues.
Could it be a message? Could it mean their Alpha was unfit to lead? Could it mean the end of their pack? Could it be a mistake? Could it be a mistake? Could he be mistaken?
Rek was sitting sideways in his chair, eyeing his alpha expectantly. One eyebrow raised as he silently mouthed the question circling the room, "Could you be wrong?"
By the time Daelan spoke, it was clear that the consensus among the council was that either he was wrong, or he was wrong for their Alpha.
"Leyrh, I don't know the answer to your question," he addressed the woman directly, then the r
est of the room, "How many of you are mated?"
He watched hands rise hesitantly, the remaining unshifted wolf whined, Daelan silently counted about half the room.
"How did you know when your mate came to you?"
Mumbles erupted through the room.
"Exactly. And how did your pack know when you had found your mate?"
Louder voices came together in a wave of white noise.
Daelan held his hand up and waited for silence to fall once more.
"We all know when a member of our pack has found a mate by the marked difference in their scent signature. Am I correct? For all my years in the pack, I have never known a member to find their mate without each and every one of us knowing as soon as we were within a few feet of them."
"So you're not wrong," Ruelle stood again and spoke boldly again, "You got yourself a human mate." He turned in a slow circle as he addressed the room, "Maybe it's time for a new Alpha."
The room broke out in chaotic voices.
"This is not going well." Daelan heard Rek mutter under his breath.
"I don't care about the position," Daelan answered, "Haley's safety is all that matters."
Rek turned his head and his deep brown eyes bored into his friend. "I think you are failing to see a very big piece of the picture here," his voice was low and calculated.
Daelan met Rek's eyes and realized the full meaning behind his words.
Without his status, he lost his say in Haley's fate.
18
"I will act as Alpha until a final decision can be made."
Rek's deep voice boomed across the room, bouncing off the far wall and vibrating the heavy wood beams running across the high ceiling.
Silence fell uneasily this time as all heads turned toward the dominating figure standing at the front of the room.
Daelan looked at his friend in shock.
Rek waited for someone to argue but no one spoke. The wolves put their heads down on their paws. The crowd seemed content with the announcement. Even Sandalius nodded satisfactorily.