by R. E. Butler
Her hips were bleeding, four slashes on one side and three on the other and the marks on the inside of her thighs had been rubbed raw and were already bruising. He was too weak to shift back to his human form, but her soft crying broke his heart and he nuzzled her chin and licked her jaw. Her eyes were vivid with tears and pain and he considered trying to force himself to shift right now, but chances were he’d simply tire himself out in the process and then it would be even longer before he was strong enough to shift. He made a whimpering noise and lay down on his belly, hoping she knew he was sorry that he’d hurt her.
He wanted to comfort her, to tend her wounds and say he was sorry a thousand times over, and he cursed his lack of control. He’d been so consumed with possession, so turned over to his beast that he couldn’t help himself and then it dawned on him. He’d not felt right since the full moon, since he hadn’t hunted because he’d been so worried about her being safe in the house. Growling internally, he cursed himself again because he’d been so careless. He should have been more aware that the shifting and hunting helped Weres keep their beasts in check. He’d basically lessened his ability to take care of her. No wonder he was acting so tied up in knots about Gray. Shifting alone wasn’t enough.
He moved to run his tongue across the marks on her hip and she winced and jerked. “No, Jas, that makes it worse.” Her voice was a bare whisper. Had she screamed herself hoarse? Had she begged him to stop? He couldn’t remember and now he felt even worse.
Groaning with effort, she rolled onto her side and put her arm around his neck and her eyes shuttered as she drifted down into sleep, making those quiet crying sounds when the tears were gone but the reason for them isn’t. He should have rested but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep when she was making little pain noises every time she moved, so he paid careful attention to his body until he was strong enough to shift to human form, and then he cleaned and bandaged her wounds. It bothered him that she didn’t want him to lick her wounds, that was a totally wolf thing to do, but he could understand that unlike the mating marks, the claw marks were jagged and deeper. To deny him something she knew he wanted to do meant she was hurting more than he realized. And like the mating marks these would be permanent which meant they were healing unfortunately slow. Her beautiful body was marred now, and while the beast in him appreciated the marks for what they stood for, the man in him was horrified that he’d hurt her in the throes of passion. He only ever wanted her to know pleasure and safety in his arms and he’d just blown everything all to hell.
“I don’t fucking deserve you, sweetheart,” he whispered, tucking a strand of her hair around her ear. Somehow, he would make this night up to her.
He slept soundly enough that he didn’t hear her get up. Or take a bath. What he did wake up in time for was to see her limping from the bathroom to the closet and catch a glimpse of the marks. She’d taken off the bandages, and the claw marks were surrounded by bruises as they healed. He’d like to rip his claws out!
“Are you rested enough, Jas?” She asked from the closet.
“What?” He sat up.
She came out of the closet pulling a long sleeved plain tee over her head. “I asked if you got enough rest. I tried to be quiet when I got up.”
“You’re not seriously worried about me, Cadence, are you?”
She rummaged in one of the smaller dresser drawers before pulling on a pair of what she called boy-short panties and these were black and white checked with red hearts. Giving him a smile, she limped over to the bed and climbed up next to him. “Of course I’m worried about you. You’ve been all tied up in knots the last week or so, and we were really fucking hard earlier, and you shifted and I know that takes a lot out of you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
He couldn’t even respond. She was limping because he’d kept his promise to himself to fuck her so hard she couldn’t walk right. Not to mention the bruising and the clear fact that she couldn’t wear clothes because of the marks. He wanted to tear his own throat out.
She looked at him expectantly for several moments and he managed to finally say, “I’m good, sweetheart, thanks.”
“I’m starving. Eggs okay?”
He lurched for her as she tried to get off the bed. She laughed and shoved at his arms as he pulled her back towards the pillows. “No offense, but I’m a little sore. Maybe later?”
Holy hell would she actually let him do anything to her so soon? Did she think he was a total barbarian? She was too agreeable for her own good. “Sweetheart, I just want you to rest and I’ll take care of breakfast.”
She arched her brow as if he was joking, but he was most definitely not. Folding her hands across her stomach, he kissed her temple and made her promise to rest and he jerked his jeans on and jogged downstairs.
Not a man that cooks so much as grills, he was fairly lost in the kitchen. But he could make toast and he could try not to dry out the eggs.
Fifteen minutes later, he had a passable pile of scrambled eggs on a plate along with three of the eight slices of bread he’d toasted, the least blackened of all of them, and a cup of coffee.
“What are the ice packs for?” She asked as she accepted the coffee first and spied them under his arm.
Resting the plate on the bed, he lifted up the sheet and put the two ice packs that had come home with her from the hospital across the worst of the bruises, which between the claw marks and the fang marks, was a draw.
“It’ll help with the bruising, love.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You’re adorable, you know that?”
He said the only thing he could think to say then without sounding like a total jackass. “Just because of you, Cades.”
He spent the day trying very hard to pamper her, even though he was totally out of his element with that. She eventually snapped at him for hovering, but he couldn’t help himself. The night before his wolf had been clamoring in his skull to mark her so that no one would ever doubt she was single again, and now, his wolf was whining to hold her and touch her.
“Where are you?” Michael snapped his fingers in front of his face a few times Monday morning and Jason blinked.
“What?” He leaned heavily on the front counter.
“I asked you if you had a chance to order the parts for the Collins job. And then I asked you where you are. You’ve been staring into nothing for like ten minutes.”
He lowered his voice slightly, “I marked Cades this weekend.”
“What, again?”
“No, I,” he flushed with embarrassment, “my claws came out and I gouged her hips and I bit her like four times to mark her. I barely got away from her before I shifted. I could have really hurt her.” She was still limping and sore, so he'd left the house while she was in the shower, taking her car keys with him. When she'd called his cell, he told her to stay home for the day and feigned a business call to get off the phone from her. She hadn't been happy when he hung up.
Michael’s curious look shifted to anger. “Is that why she’s not here today? I told you that you shouldn’t have skipped hunting. It was foolish, J.”
Michael’s sudden disrespectful tone made Jason’s wolf bristle. “Watch it, Michael.”
Michael’s normally jovial good-time behavior morphed into anger as rapidly as turning a faucet from cold to hot. “Hey, she’s our alpha, you fuck. You could have shredded her with your claws! You’re supposed to be better than that.”
He made a fist and planned to shove Michael’s teeth into his brain, but he knew he was right. He was supposed to be better than that. Relaxing some, at least enough to let go of the fist, he put his head in his hands, “The worst part is she thinks it was normal. That it was some kind of extra mating marks or something. I mean I could have pulled her hip out of socket or caught an artery with my fangs. I just, I didn’t put two and two together until I shifted and then I realized the mistake I’d made.”
“She actually thinks that wolves claw each other up when they hav
e sex?”
“Yeah. She trusts me not to hurt her and I did.”
“Well, I’m not exactly an expert on women, but I do know Cadence. If you tell her now, that you fucked up and what you’re going to do to make sure it never happens again, then she’ll forgive you. But if you let it go, what happens next summer when we’re hanging out at the lake and Callie catches a glimpse of those marks and tells her it’s not normal unless the male is over-the-top possessive? She’ll skin you alive.”
“I didn’t hunt because I was afraid to lose her again. I can’t get it out of my head.”
“Then next full moon, and however many more after that, we’ll hunt in shifts. You know the females would stay around her, they accept this part of her because of how strong she is. You need to hunt, man. What if she was pregnant? You can’t manhandle a half-human like that, man. Even for a full female wolf it would be close to the edge. Think it through.”
“You’re right.” That thought had not even crossed his mind and now it compounded his guilt. “Keep it between us, Michael.”
He shrugged, “Keep what between us?”
That’s why he hadn’t killed his brother over the years. Because no matter the trouble he caused or the way he grinned when he was causing it, he was a true and loyal friend and would march right against the gates of hell to help someone that he loved.
Later that night, when they ate the take-out he’d brought home and she made him swear he wasn’t going to take her keys and strand her at the house again, he told her everything.
All too quiet, she looked at him for several minutes and then she finally said, “It was the closest I ever felt to being a real wolf.” She shrugged. “I knew you were rough, I knew you marked me because something else was going on. I am yours, Jas. Scars or not. You can’t deny yourself because you’re worried about me. I’m not made of glass.”
“I could have really hurt you. More than I did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Cades,” she stopped him with a finger on his lips.
“You. Didn’t. Let it go, Jas. I have.” She kissed him, softly, the way that she did when she seemed to still wonder if it was all real between them. He imagined that her first kiss had been something like that, nervous and careful.
He took her to bed, but only to hold, and she needed him that way, and he needed her, too. She asked him to put it behind them, so he did. In the end, he was once more grateful that his sweetheart was forgiving of his many, many faults.
She cried when Jake left. It was part of the reason that he had them meet privately together instead of in front of the packs. She’d make herself sick trying not to cry in front of the others and after everything else she’d been through, he could do this for her.
Renee gave her a box of things that had been family heirlooms, jewelry and trinkets, and Cadence clutched the box like she could stop herself from crying if the corners bit into her skin hard enough to distract her from the emotional pain. A caravan of moving trucks and vehicles left Allen, Kentucky for parts south. The town he’d grown up in was changing drastically. He just wasn’t sure what to make of the town now, and being alpha meant it was very much up to him.
The following week they picked out wedding bands and she insisted on getting a plain white gold band just slightly smaller than the one he decided on, even though he was more than willing to get her one of the flashier ones. He was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with the cost of the other ones, but just that she liked the plain band and that was what she wanted.
The next weekend, she went shopping with his mother and Callie for a dress and whatever the hell else women need for the honeymoon. He made sure she knew that he expected there to be a great deal of nudity in the cozy two-bedroom cabin that they were renting. It was nestled in the woods and had a hot tub on the back deck, and his biggest desire was to make up for everything she’d endured for the last couple of months, not to mention all the shit she’d put up with from him over the years.
In the winter, there was not much to do in Pigeon Forge, most of the big attractions were closed for the season, and he didn’t care. Although they were planning to go out to dinner occasionally and drive up the mountain and over into Cherokee, North Carolina, all he really wanted was an uninterrupted week with his sweetheart so they could get to know each other better.
He and a handful of wolves packed up his trailer and moved everything into Cadence’s house while she was shopping. The parents of two younger wolves who had graduated school this past year bought the trailer from him for nearly what he paid for it. While he would have taken much less just to have it off his hands, he didn’t try to haggle them down. He’s not an idiot, after all.
He heard laughing and he found Michael and Linus getting ready to hang up one of his beer-girl pictures. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Michael grinned, “Sprucing up the dining room.”
“She will part your head from your body, man,” he cautioned.
Michael angled the picture towards him to show the picture he was going to hang up. “Except for the color of the hair, this girl looks like Cades.”
That was why he’d gotten it. A poor substitution in any case. “Michael, you can’t.”
“Afraid she’ll ask if you used to play your pipe to it?”
His face heated. “No.”
Michael grinned further, “Aw, worried she’d beat up your little bro?”
“No, I’m worried that you’ll be long gone by the time she gets home and then I’ll have to deal with the fallout.” He laughed, but it was true. Plus, it was disrespectful. And Cadence would definitely hand him his ass if Michael put an unnecessary hole in the wall and hung a picture of a half naked woman on it.
“Fine, I’ll take it off your hands then.” There was something about the way that Michael looked at it that made the hackles on Jason’s neck stand up. He crossed the room and yanked it from his hand.
“No way. Now go finish unloading the truck.”
“Aye, Captain,” Michael saluted in an idiotic way and jogged out of the house with Linus.
The house was small but perfect, and he was glad she’d gotten him to agree to paint it ahead of time. He switched out her old television for his flat screen and stereo system. How she could stand to have no HD and no stereo was beyond him, but she was going to get a fast lesson in how much better movies were if they were loud with a crystal clear picture. Bo was their resident electronics guru and he spent several hours hooking up the surround sound while Jason unpacked his clothes. Upstairs, she’d moved everything except what she referred to as her “winter things” from the master closet into another bedroom, so he had room to hang up his own things.
He was looking down at the shoes in the master closet. Delicate, small dress shoes, tennis shoes, and those suede fuck-me boots that he loved, and his own work boots and motorcycle boots placed next to them. He thought it was a good picture for the two of them. Not one to wax poetic, he saw a strong and beautiful woman who had opened her life to an overpowering brute of a man and given him access to every part of herself without reservation. They were opposite as much as they were similar, but they were made perfect for each other. And soon, she would be his forever in every single way. If there really was a wolf heaven, he’s in it right now.
Chapter 17
Jason wanted to celebrate their first night officially living together, and as they tumbled into bed he produced the mating strap.
Handing it to her, he scooted down the bed and reached up, grasping two of the bars on the headboard with his hands. She looked at the long length of leather and at him and as she looped one end around one wrist she thought that he was doing this to let her make him as helpless as he believed he’d made her that one night when he felt like he’d gone overboard. She loved the hell out of her marks, though, even though it had hurt at the time and for a while afterwards. They were sensitive now, especially the ones on her hips. When he played his fingers or tongu
e across them it was like an electric tickle that shivered up and down her body.
When he was secure, she sat back on her heels to inspect her work and smiled when he instinctively tugged on the bindings. They were very secure, and the headboard was wrought iron. He could bend it, maybe, but he couldn’t break it.
“Just one thing, sweet,” he said with a dark, husky voice.
She hummed in her throat and rubbed a finger around his dusky nipple.
“Would you park on my face for about an hour?”
Oh hell yes!
* * * * * * *
She had a case of nerves as she walked down the aisle of the Love Chapel in Pigeon Forge. The wedding had come upon her so fast that it was like she went to bed the night of the full moon in November and woke up this morning sharing a hotel room with Callie.
Jason’s father had offered to walk her down the aisle and as she held onto his arm and walked the short aisle in the quaint chapel, she wondered if her father were alive, if he would have even attended, let alone given her away. If things had been different, she would have asked Jake to stand with her on such a special day. And Renee, too. She’d had a big void in her heart that Jason and the pack had more than filled.
She was nervous because she was always afraid at these sorts of incredible times that she was dreaming. That she would wake up suddenly and be alone in her bed in the house and none of the things that had passed had actually happened. But it was real. She had pinched herself a half dozen times earlier, just to be sure, and Callie had even offered her pinching services. As her maid of honor, she walked down with Michael, and the only other people in the chapel were Jason’s mom and his grandfather Abraham.
She had picked a simple short sleeved white satin dress with some beading on the bodice that counted for her “new” item. Instead of a veil, she used Tina’s pearl hair combs which also doubled as her “borrowed”. Her mother's sapphire bracelet doubled as both her “old” and “blue”, and it helped her feel connected to the woman she'd never known. Wolves didn’t have any special traditions related to the human marriage, but she did pack their mating strap so that Jason could take his turn tying her up. That had been one damn hot night and he had marks on his wrists for days afterwards.