by Kimber White
Before I had a chance to process it, the wolf stepped back then bent low again, arching his back to almost a perfect U shape. His claws dug deep into the ground and shuddered. For a moment, my vision went blurry, or at least the shape of the wolf did. His fur rippled and shifted, the thin bones above his paw thickened and stretched.
I took a step back, then another. The wolf reared his head back and let out a haunting wail that seared me to my soul. His body stretched and grew, elongating as the fur seemed to recede, leaving tanned flesh behind. Then, his shoulders broadened and fur was replaced with muscle. His snout stretched, then spread, giving way to a human nose and jaw whose lines I was just beginning to know by heart.
I blinked once, hard, and Tucker rose to his full height in front of me where the wolf had once been.
Maybe I should have run or screamed. My eyes couldn’t have seen what I knew they just had. Tucker was the wolf. The wolf was Tucker. I knew this, and all at once I knew something else, as my flesh burned where he had marked me and heat throbbed between my legs.
I belonged to them both.
Chapter Ten
It wasn’t fear or shock I felt that day when Tucker came to me. I craned my neck to keep his gaze. His eyes...the wolf’s eyes...flashed silver, and it was as if everything that happened was something I’d known all along. He reached out, letting his fingers play along my arms as he drew me closer to him.
“Are you all right?” he finally said.
I cocked my head and reached up. His eyelids fluttered as I caressed his jaw and let my hand run down the curve of his broad shoulder, and touch the dark curls across his chest. His shift from wolf to man had been both brutal and beautiful. Like what I imagined childbirth must be like. And I knew in that moment his willingness to let me witness it was an act of trust. Would I understand? Would I think him a monster?
“Neve,” he said. The sound of my name against his lips made me shudder. I wanted him to say it again and again. “You need to understand what it all means. There are some things you have to decide.”
I nodded. Of course he was right. But as my fingers played along his flesh and his body heat warmed me, all I could think about was letting him wrap himself around me again, letting him stretch me wide and take me over and over and forever. I ran my hand down his back, cupping the rock solid muscle of his naked buttocks.
“Come inside,” he said. “The others are going to be here soon.”
Others?
Tucker motioned for me to sit on the couch again as he went into the bedroom. He came back with drawstring pajamas slung low on his hips and tossed me a white t-shirt. One of his. I couldn’t help but inhale his scent as I pulled the shirt over my head.
“You sure you’re all right?” he said as he sat on the couch next to me. We’d done some serious damage to the room last night. His coffee table was broken in two pieces against the wall. A chair near the fireplace had been overturned.
“I shouldn’t be,” I said. “But somehow I am. If you were going to hurt me, seems like you had plenty of chances before now.”
Tucker’s eyes darkened and he reached for me, cupping the back of my neck with his hand. “I’m never going to hurt you, Neve. From now on, I’ll lay down my life for you if I have to. My life and any member of my pack’s.”
His pack. I knew what he meant but my brain had trouble truly processing the words. His pack. Without him telling me, I already knew I’d met some of them. Jake, the deputy. The two other men who’d been with Tucker when I first met him at the State Park outpost. How many more?
“And they’re like you?” I drew Tucker’s hand away from my neck and held it in my own. His hands were large and powerful, nearly twice the size of mine. “Werewolves? Is that a term you use? Shifter?” I felt stupid asking. But my only language reference came from books and movies. Fairytales.
Tucker smiled and ran his thumb along my palm, sending a tingle straight up my arm. “Yes. Don’t worry. It’s not a slur.”
Something else prickled the hairs along my neck and my blood turned to ice. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes shot straight to Tucker’s. I pressed the mark on the back of my neck with the palm of my hand. “Will that happen to me now?”
Tucker’s eyes grew serious. “I can’t change you,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “Not unless you were already born like me. You won’t shift. But Neve, I did do something to you, and you need to understand what and why.”
I nodded. I flipped my hand so that now I traced the strong veins along Tucker’s wrist where they snaked into his broad, rough palm. I pressed my thumb against the sensitive flesh until I could feel his strong pulse. Tucker’s heartbeat. My heartbeat. I sensed it, but now the evidence was right there beneath my fingertips. He would explain, but I already knew one thing. We shared some kind of blood bond now. Tucker’s pulse perfectly matched my own, as if our hearts now beat together.
“You marked me,” I said, and Tucker nodded. “We’re connected now.”
Tucker sighed. A tender smile lifted the corners of his mouth and his gray eyes sparkled. “We are. You can sense me.”
I nodded. “I don’t know how to say it. But, I feel you. Here.” I pressed my other hand against my heart.
“And I feel you,” he said. “From now on, I’ll always know where you are. I’ll know if you’re in danger. I’ll know how to find you, as long as I still draw breath. And after that, the pack will protect you. They’re connected to me too. And you through me.”
My head spun. It was a strange sensation, not feeling completely in control of my own heart. The old me would have maybe panicked a little. But, with Tucker by my side, his presence calmed me. My steady heartbeat came from him.
“It won’t always be this strong,” he said, running a finger between my breasts and tapping me just above my heart. “But when you’re by my side and after we’ve just coupled, we’ll be in sync like this. If you’re further away from me, the pull won’t be as strong.”
The moment he said it, a deep longing and fear warmed my blood. The idea of being far away from Tucker sent a shiver of cold panic through me, like the air had just gone out of the room. God, I didn’t ever want to leave his side.
I shifted so I straddled him. Through the cotton of his pajama pants, I could feel him growing hard. I was still naked beneath the t-shirt and his rigid cock pressed against my heated cleft.
“I can’t stand thinking about that right now,” I said. I snaked my arms around his shoulders and Tucker wrapped his arms around my waist. I should think about it. I was supposed to be long gone, on my way to my new life at the University of Michigan. That seemed a million miles away, and in another lifetime, now. My world was two inches in front of me and staring up at me with that devastating flash of silver in his eyes.
“Will you stay with me?” he asked, and his pleading eyes went through me, spearing me with heat from my head straight through my core. Unbidden, my hips began to grind against him and my breath started to come short.
“Tucker,” I gasped. What was happening to me? I was like some bitch in heat when I was around him. Maybe that’s exactly what I was. Oh, and I wanted to be. I wanted to spend the rest of my life in this cabin with Tucker, letting him do wicked things to me and making me beg for more.
He threaded his fingers through my hair and drew me down so he could kiss me. His lips were hot and wet, and I sank into him again. I couldn’t stand not having him in me again. My body thirsted for it. I felt like I would die if I didn’t have him inside me right now.
With frantic hands, I fumbled with the drawstring on his pants. His cock had grown rock hard beneath me and I struggled to free it. I raised myself up on my knees and settled over him. Tucker had gone slow last night, letting me get used to the size. Now though, I didn’t care if he tore me in half, I just had to have him in me. I settled myself over him and lowered myself down, taking him in to the root.
He fit me so well now. It had only taken one night, and my body was alre
ady trained just for him. I didn’t fuck him. Not then. I just needed the feel of him in me, and it was enough to calm the rising urge.
“What is this?” I asked, fixing my eyes on Tucker’s. He stayed deep within me, but didn’t move. It wasn’t about that. Not yet. This was about our need to be completely connected to each other while he tried to make me understand.
“You’re mine.”
It wasn’t really an answer, and yet it explained everything. I was his. And he was mine. Whatever he had done to me, I now had the strong physical need to couple with him like this. I needed it like the air in my lungs.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smoothing a lock of hair away from my eyes. “I know I should have explained everything before I took you. I should have given you the choice.”
Would it have mattered? I tried to think about how I felt before Tucker and I came together last night. But everything before that seemed like the distant past. It was like I came to life for the first time when Tucker touched me. It was crazy. I wasn’t this girl. I was practical, sensible. The daughter of a fireman who taught her to question everything and trust no one. But with Tucker, I was wanton and free and more alive than I’d ever felt in all of my twenty years on earth. If he had given me a choice last night, would I have walked away? Would I have had the courage to say no?
“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” I cupped Tucker’s face in my hands, running the pad of my thumb along his thick, arching brow.
“I could undo it,” he said. “I could break the connection. But Neve, you need to understand the other reason why I did it.”
“There’s more than one?” I smiled, feeling suddenly shy. Tucker’s erection twitched inside me, sending fresh waves of desire through me. Soon, I wouldn’t be able to hold still.
“Yes. I think the main reason is obvious. You did something to me, too, last night, Neve. I’m not in the habit of marking women like this. There’s something different about you. The minute I touched you, I knew you were the one. Believe me, this whole thing has thrown me for as much of a loop as it’s done you.”
I placed a soft kiss on Tucker’s lips. I didn’t want to think for a single second about how many other women Tucker had been with, though I knew it should be none of my business.
“We have to stop.” Tucker shifted, pulling himself out of me. The loss of him, even for a second made me ache. “The others are on their way up here. I’m going to have to explain everything to them too.”
I pulled the t-shirt back down to cover myself, stretching it over my knees as I drew them up to my chest. Tucker adjusted himself and shot me a devastatingly sexy wink. “There will be time for that soon, I promise.”
“What’s the other reason?” I asked.
Tucker’s eyes grew dark again. He stood up and turned, placing one hand on the stone mantle of the fireplace. I watched him in profile as he slicked his hair back with his other hand. “It has to do with what happened on the road the other day.”
Things locked into place in my mind before Tucker finished talking. The wolf.
“She was like you, wasn’t she?” I said. My throat felt dry. That beautiful she-wolf who died in my arms. I’d known there was something special, something human, about her. I hadn’t been imagining things when I looked into her eyes as she died.
Tucker nodded. “Magda.”
Magda. I’d heard him say her name the other night when he took Jake and the others outside.
“Was she part of the pack?” Fresh horror crept into my chest. Had I killed a member of Tucker’s pack?
He shook his head. “No. She was were, yes. I think you already knew that. She was mated to the alpha of a rival pack. His name is Asher. There’s a lot of history between us, Asher and me. I can’t go in to all of it now.”
“And now they want to kill me,” I whispered, realization dawning on me. I killed one of them. An eye for an eye.
“It’s not going to happen.” Tucker turned, his voice had lowered to that menacing growl I understood on a different level now. “Do you understand that? They aren’t going to touch you. I’m going to protect you. You’re one of us now, if you want to be. My body, my pack, you have my word.”
“What happens if I leave?”
Tucker’s eyes widened and I swear I felt the panic and longing as it rose within him. He got a hold of it though. My own heartbeat steadied along with his as he took a deep breath. His lips set into a grim line.
“You have that choice,” he said. “I told you I can break the connection if you want. It would have to be now though. If we wait much longer, it’s permanent.”
“How do you break it?” Fear simmered low in my belly. Was I serious? Did I want that?
“It’s a little gory but I promise it won’t hurt for long. If I cut away the mark before it has a chance to permanently imprint, that would be the end of it.”
Almost unbidden, my hand flew to the crescent shaped scar on the back of my neck. It throbbed with heat beneath my fingertips. It was mine. It was part of me. I knew it before I could give voice to it. But since he’d done it, everything about me had changed. I wasn’t who I was yesterday, and there was no denying it. I hadn’t consented to this, not really. And now Tucker was giving me the chance to go back.
“What would happen to me then? Will this rival pack leave me alone then?”
Tucker sighed. “No. I’m sorry. Asher isn’t being rational. He’s mad with grief over losing Magda. I know it was an accident. You saw with your own eyes how this is affecting him.”
Asher. Of course. He’d been the large red wolf who’d tried to tear me out of my car the other day. He wanted to tear me limb from limb, and there was no denying it.
“I’m safer here with you.” It was a question and a statement.
Tucker nodded. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you the coming days will be easy. Bringing you here… When Ash figures out I’ve marked you, he might take that as a sign of open warfare. That’s the worst case scenario. I’m hoping his pack can help bring him to his senses before it comes to that. A full out pack war isn’t good for any of us. Ash may be hurting now, but he’s not incapable of reason. But even if that happens, I can protect you better if you’re among us. It’s going to take the rest of them some getting used to, but they’ll eventually see what I did was for the good of all of us.”
“Wait.” I stood, putting the couch between us. “You mean there’s a chance the rest of your pack won’t accept me?”
Tucker shook his head. “This is my pack. It’s my decision. It’s not a democracy.”
His words were strong, but I saw something flicker in Tucker’s eyes. He wasn’t fully sure of the repercussions of marking me. The easier thing would have been for him to let me go. Before yesterday, Tucker had no claim on me. What difference would it have made to his pack if Asher had torn me apart in some misguided sense of revenge for a car accident? Staying out of it, leaving me to whatever justice Asher wanted to mete out would have been the safest choice for Tucker’s pack. In that moment, I began to fully grasp the gravity of the decision Tucker had made.
As much as he told me he’d done it to protect me, marking me also put me in a different kind of danger. It put me in the middle of whatever might go down between him and Asher. I had no concept of what a pack war was. Hell, a few hours ago I had no concept of what a werewolf really was. But I’d seen the deadly fire in Asher’s eyes and the fierce courage Tucker had shown when he came between us. More than once.
Tucker had marked me because he wanted me. The knowledge of that...the power of that decision shuddered through me.
Tucker. Wanted. Me.
My body moved of its own accord. I crossed the room in two quick strides. Tucker got his arms up in time for me to step into them. He lifted me off my feet so we were nose to nose. I showered his face, his lips, with kisses.
I wanted him, too. Logic, reason, and sensibility had no place between us. Tucker wanted me. His skin burned from it; his heartbeat quickened
along with my own. I belonged here. I belonged with, and to, him. The thought of leaving him, of letting him cut away the bond he’d made between us, was obscene to me. He’d given me the gift of his body, his mark, his life. I recognized it for the marvel it was. He was mine, I was his, and it was how all of this was supposed to be. Whatever happened next, we’d face it together. I said none of this, but Tucker’s lips on mine sealed the pact between us.
Nothing else mattered except me staying with him. If it was some trick or magic, I no longer cared. It felt good. It felt right. Tucker made me feel whole and alive, and my heart soared, my blood sang with the knowledge of it.
I meant to let him take me then and there, to strengthen the bond between us now and forever. But as I wrapped my legs around him and struggled to free him from his pants again, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I knew we weren’t alone.
Tucker shifted, letting me slide down until my feet touched the ground. I pulled the t-shirt back down to cover my nakedness, and turned toward the door. It had swung open. Four large wolves stepped out of the clearing, their eyes flashing with menace.
Tucker moved slowly, stepping around me to put his body between me and the threat. His body hummed with a low growl that reminded me of an idling car engine.
“Tucker?” I looked up. His eyes had gone feral, flashing silver. He bared his teeth and crouched low, ready to strike if any of them came any closer.
“Just stay behind me,” he said, his voice a threatening hiss. “Let me do all the talking.”
I nodded and gripped his forearm as he walked toward the door. He stepped out on the porch and kept me half shielded behind him, my back pressed against the door frame.
The largest wolf of this group had a black coat and menacing yellow eyes. He dipped his head low and bared his teeth. Saliva ran from the corner of his mouth.