by Kimber White
“They’re probably on their way back now,” I said, still trying to maintain a shield against the current between us.
Mal’s full mouth curved into a smile. “They went pretty far north this time. A hundred miles at least. Tucker wants to make contact with one of the packs near the Canadian border. They’ll seek shelter and ride out the storm. We might not see them again until morning. Maybe not until the day after tomorrow.”
I wanted to protest with my words. But, as soon as Mal said it, I knew it was true. Tucker had stopped running. Wherever he was, he was at rest. My own pulse fluttered in my temples. Mal cocked his head to the side as he worked something out for himself. Then he narrowed those deep, golden eyes and leaned in closer, letting his hot breath play against my neck.
“We’re alone,” he whispered.
A small noise escaped from my lips. It was part objection, part groan of anticipated pleasure.
“You were there the other night,” I said. “In the woods by the lake. I saw you.” Words helped. They did. If I kept myself talking, no matter what I said, I could focus on something other than what was really about to happen.
Mal leaned back a little but kept his hands pressed flat on either side of my head. “I was.”
Part of me thought he’d try to deny it. It had been a private moment between Tucker and me, but if I sensed Mal there, of course Tucker knew he was there too. I didn’t talk to him about it, because I didn’t understand my own feelings. As much as I craved pleasure from the rest of the pack, when Tucker was near, I belonged only to him. It was an unspoken code between them that I’d sensed from the beginning. And yet, Tucker had done nothing to drive Mal away. He wanted him there. Wanted him to watch. As if to show him I belonged to Tucker and Mal could only watch from a distance.
But Mal was right here in front of me now, and my traitorous body called out for his. There was no point in denying it. My sex throbbed. I grew damp as Mal’s heat enveloped me and drove out rational thought. God help me. I wanted him. Badly. My body cried out for his. And he hadn’t even moved yet. I knew the moment he did, I could get lost in him.
“I shouldn’t want this,” I whispered. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it didn’t matter. Mal was inside me even though he hadn’t touched me yet. The struggle to hold Tucker there, as well, threatened to bring me to my knees. I wanted him. I wanted Mal. Nothing seemed real, but everything was right in front of me.
“What do you want, Neve?” Mal’s voice was low and sultry, carrying the trace of a growl as he waged his own war within him. The wild thing he was ached to come out.
“I want Tucker. My Alpha.”
“Are you sure that’s all you want?”
“It’s enough.”
“I suppose it should be.”
“You and Reed, Barrett and Jake. I love you. You know I do. But, I’m an Alpha’s mate. When he’s here, he’s everything.”
Mal’s mouth curled into a smile. He was mocking me. Anger rose along with my desire. I wanted to slap him, claw at him, and fuck him all at the same time.
“He’s not here right now, though. You belong to the pack, don’t you? So what’s got you so scared? We’re not doing anything you haven’t already done.”
He was right and he was wrong. This was different. So different. With the others, it had only been about taking our pleasure. The way Mal looked at me, the way my body, my mark called out for him, felt so much deeper. He wanted to claim me in the way that Tucker did.
Then Mal leaned in. He held his lips a fraction of an inch away from mine. My breath thudded in my chest. I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from kissing him. But I didn’t want to stop myself, and he knew it. Then, he kissed me. Not with the crushing press of his lips but with the lightest touch. Yet somehow, that soft touch drove me over the edge as hard as if he’d pulled me to him and taken me to the ground.
I moaned against him and kissed him back. My touch was more urgent. I teased and explored his mouth with my tongue. Mal kept himself still, letting me be bold. He was proving a point to me without saying a word. It was maddening. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to fuck him. Oh, God. I just wanted him to kiss me back! I longed for the feel of his rough fingers playing over my body and searching out my most sensitive parts. He kept his hands flat against the stall door, reveling in the sweet torture he delivered by not ravishing me.
Finally, I pulled myself together and dropped out from under his arms. With a staggering step I went to the opposite stall and turned to face him.
“What do you want? What are you trying to prove?”
Mal turned and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms in front of him and one booted ankle over the other. “I have nothing to prove. I know who I am. Can you say the same thing?”
I tore a hand through my hair. He hadn’t done anything. Not really. He hadn’t raised his voice, nor so much as a finger to touch me. And yet, he brought some simmering rage to the surface in me, and had me questioning everything.
“If you were mine you wouldn’t have to question anything.”
Could he hear my thoughts? Or was the turmoil within me broadcasting so loud and clear he didn’t have to? I took a breath. “I’m part of the pack. I know what that means. And I do want you. But, I’m not comfortable with this. I don’t know, it feels different with you than it did with the others. I think you want something more from me.”
Mal laughed then. Again, it was mocking and accusatory. “I said if you were mine you wouldn’t have to question anything. Ever. You’d know exactly where you stood.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“At least I speak the truth. Not half-truths and outright lies.”
“Tucker told me everything,” I protested. “I know about Asher. I know about his father and what his actions did to the pack. He’s hidden nothing from me.”
He came at me again. He put a hand behind my neck and pulled me close. His fingers burned hot against the mark I bore. It throbbed in time with the aching pulse of my sex. God. I wanted him. Lust raged through me, settling between my legs and making my knees weak.
“You’d have no room for questions. I’d show you things about yourself you’ve never dreamed were true. You’d never feel the pulse of another Alpha beating along with mine. And you do feel mine, don’t you? Try to deny it.”
My knees shook. He cocked his head to the side, hovering just inches from me. But still, he held himself in check, daring me to make the first move. I’d done it with Reed and Barrett, but this wasn’t the same, and we both knew it. What he’d just said bordered on betraying the pack. “Tucker just tells you pretty lies to keep you safe.”
“Shut up.” My voice was barely more than a whisper. Hot tears rose behind my eyes and I blinked them away. “I said you’re talking in riddles. If you have something to say, then say it.”
He narrowed those cursed golden eyes at me. I knew he was starting to lose the battle for his own self-control. Either he’d give into the passion stirring between us, or he’d have to let his wolf out. Soon, he wouldn’t be strong enough to contain them both.
The man won out.
Mal finally crushed his lips to mine. His skin seared against me. His wolf flared to life in a low growl that vibrated through me. My body responded with wave after wave of burning desire. I felt like I might die if he broke the kiss or took his hands off me. Mal’s pulse inside me had been fainter than Tucker’s. But in that brief moment, it rose to a thunderous crescendo that drowned out everything that wasn’t the two of us.
I threaded my fingers through his hair, and pulled him close against me. We had too many clothes. Too much space between us. I wanted him inside me. I wanted him to give me what I knew he had beneath his weathered jeans. I would crawl for him. Beg for him. Spread myself open for him again and again.
Mal turned me. I got my hands out and pressed them flat against the rough wood of the stall walls. He flicked his tongue along the sensitive flesh at the back of my neck, teasing it along the edge
s of my Alpha’s mark. Then he bared his teeth and scraped me there. He fumbled with the zipper on his jeans with one hand and started to drag mine down with his other hand.
Yes! I wanted to cry out, but my voice had left me. My body quaked and shuddered, waiting to be ravaged and filled. It would be so good. Right and wrong all at once. I fought no wolf within me, but marked as I was, I couldn’t hold back my own ravenous desires for another second.
He licked and teased the back of my neck. I heard his teeth snap. He pressed them against my scarred flesh and the mark flared hot. He wanted to bite me. His desires broadcast loud and clear inside me. Bite me. Mark me. Claim me for his own. I wanted him to. I wanted Tucker. In another second, I wouldn’t be able to hold on to reason. The pull to let go of everything and just ride the waves of my desire was strong. I had to give into it, even if it meant I’d lose myself forever.
Then, loud as a siren, a howl cut the air between us. I heard it not with my ears but with my whole body, somehow. The hairs stood up at the back of my neck and Tucker’s mark blazed to life as if it had been pressed with a hot poker. Mal reared back, my flesh seemed to burn him, too. It was as if he’d been ripped from my head. His heart stopped beating inside me and seemed to go back into his own body. I turned in time to see Mal fall to the ground. He covered his ears with his hands as if the distant howl could tear him in two.
It could. I knew it. Tucker may be far away. Mal may have some ability to drive him out of my head for just that moment, but Tucker knew. He would always know.
I felt him now, his pulse beating furious and strong beneath my own breast. Yes, Tucker knew. He was in a murderous rage. And he was on his way back.
Chapter Thirty
“Get away from me.” I choked out the words as I doubled over, bracing myself with my hands on my knees in a near crash position. That’s exactly what this was. My insides felt like they had split apart in a thousand tiny fragments and were about to collide again. “He doesn’t want this. I can’t want this. I love him.”
Mal knelt before me on one knee, holding his head with one hand the ground with the other, his fingers splayed wide. He looked up at me with tortured wolf eyes. Tucker’s howl rent the air again and Mal shuddered. He went down on all fours and arched his back, struggling to contain the wolf that Tucker’s command sought to drive out.
I took a step back. The only wolf I feared was Asher. But what was happening to Mal was forceful and violent. His Alpha compelled this shift against Mal’s will. When his wolf sprung free, would he come after me?
Tallulah and Brat reared in their stalls, sensing the storm outside, and the one brewing right in front of them. A clap of thunder cracked through the air, and the skies turned purple and dark. The horses brayed and whinnied, kicking at their stalls. I backed away from Mal, trailing my fingers along the rough wood. Mal was more beast than man now. His clothes tore away from his body as his fur sprung free and his muscles bunched and warped, reforming before my eyes.
He looked up at me one last time as his face contorted in pain and his nose grew into a snout. “Run,” he whispered. Then his jaw lengthened and his fangs sprang forth. Tallulah kicked her stall right in front of me again, as if to underscore Mal’s command.
I swallowed hard, then turned and ran out into the rain toward the house. Tucker’s howl cut the air one more time just before another thunderclap shook the ground. The rain fell in sheets, soaking me to the bone in an instant. I slipped once on the newly wet ground, splitting my knee open.
I chanced one look back at the barn. Mal’s eyes glowed in the darkness but he didn’t give chase. I picked myself up and ran toward the house. Pat was already there, holding the door open and beckoning me to her. Mal’s howl rose to join Tucker’s as I reached the porch steps. Pat pulled me close against her, wrapping me in a soft, cotton towel.
Tucker and Mal’s howls rose together as the storm raged on.
Pat had my clothes spinning in the dryer and a fire going. I sat near the hearth in a dry tank top and shorts, wrapped in a fleece blanket, but I couldn’t stop shivering.
“Strong, hot tea,” Pat said, placing a cup on the stone hearth in front of me. I smiled up at her and thanked her. She took a seat in Harold’s chair, a worn recliner closest to me, hiking up her housecoat.
“Things are sure stirred up out there,” she said, her bright, comforting smile reached her eyes and warmed me as much as the fire did. “Lightening took out one of the transponders on the south edge of the property.” The flickering fire provided enough light for the living room, but the rest of the house grew dark as evening approached.
“How long does it take the power company to make it all the way up here?” I asked, grasping for normal conversation. I didn’t know how to talk about what happened in the stable. Or even if I wanted to.
“Pfft,” she waved her hand. “Days. They think we’re all a bunch of hicks and hillbillies up here. No matter the people on these lands are employing the tax base for the whole region. Everyone around here works for W.L.O. one way or another. But, we’re lucky if we get service by the end of the week. Don’t worry, though. Once Mal gets himself together, I’ll have him hook up the generators. That is, if he hasn’t run half way to Kentucky by now.”
That was my fear, too. Mal’s wolf had torn off to the south and could be miles away by now. Tucker was coming back, but it would be a while before he got here. My heart trilled at the thought of it. I missed him. Needed him. What had almost happened between Mal and I left me trembling. The wolves of Wild Lake weren’t the only creatures with primal urges. Though I was frozen to the bone, my skin still burned hot. It was like I was dope sick.
“You wanna talk about it?” Pat said. Her tone was kind, without an ounce of accusation. Clanging in the doorway drew our attention. Harold had just banged into Pat’s hanging tins again. He let out a volley of obscenities that made me laugh despite the turmoil raging within me.
“Go on upstairs, Harold,” Pat called out. “If you can get there without killing yourself. We need some girl talk, and you’re not wanted.”
Harold swore something, banged into another tin I think just for spite, but went up the stairs with great, thumping and deliberate steps. Then Pat turned her attention back to me, fixing her warm smile back in place.
“Will he cast Mal out, do you think?” I asked.
Pat sighed and leaned back. She looked into the fire and picked at a frayed thread on the armrest of Harold’s chair. “He didn’t hurt you. He didn’t try to make you do anything you didn’t want to, did he?”
My heart tripped. Of course that would matter to her. “No,” I said with more force than I wanted. “No,” I said again, making my voice softer. “Nothing I didn’t want. And nothing happened at all. Not really. It was just . . .”
Pat leaned forward and put a hand on my knee. “It’s been coming on for a long time. A lot of it has nothing to do with you.”
“Is Mal going to challenge Tucker?” The idea made bile rise in my throat. I didn’t want that. I didn’t know how I felt about Mal, but I didn’t want him hurt. And I certainly didn’t want Tucker hurt, especially if it was because of me.
Pat leaned back and shrugged. “Not if he’s got any sense in that thick head of his. But Mal is what he is. Jared worried about this day when they were scrappy little pups, those two. Mal makes Tucker a better leader. Or at least that’s always been the way of it, up until now. We’ll see if that stays true when Tucker gets back.”
It was an elaborate non-answer and I wasn’t going to put up with it. “Mal isn’t going to settle. There’s something rising in him. I felt it.” I put a hand to the back of my neck, covering my scar. It had blazed for Mal. I couldn’t deny that, and knew it had to mean something.
Pat’s eyes widened. Then her face went slack and she closed her eyes and rubbed her chin. “I knew he was strong. I didn’t realize it had gotten this bad.” When she opened her eyes, they shone with tears.
“What’s coming, Pat?”
She shrugged. “If Mal is meant to be an Alpha, then we have a different set of problems. The best advice I can give you is to stay out of them as much as you can.”
“The only way an Alpha can rise is if he kills another Alpha or forms his own pack. That’s what Tucker told me. Is there another way?”
Pat shook her head. “No. That’s the gist of it. It means that Mal’s time is coming fast. He’s got some decisions to make. I pray he makes the right ones. Maybe it’s better if he does keep running for Kentucky.”
The idea that I may never see Mal again tore at me. I hated this. I felt like my heart was splitting in two. I didn’t love Mal. Not the way I loved Tucker. But he mattered to me, too. He was part of the pack. He was part of me, whether I liked it or not.
“But, I’ll tell ya. He couldn’t have picked a worse fucking time!” Pat rubbed her knees. “I have half a mind to have one of the other packs go out there and drag him back here just so I could have the chance to throttle him.”
I nodded. I felt the same way. The threat of Asher was still strong. Tucker needed his pack whole and ready to defend their lands. He didn’t need an internal war with Mal right now. Pat was right, the best thing I could do was stay as far away from Mal as I could. If being around me flared his passion--and my own--we had to find a way to keep it at bay. It was one more reason I needed Tucker by my side, and fast.
I caught Pat’s eyes as her hand went to the faded mark at the nape of her own neck.
“Who was it?” I asked. The timing seemed right this time.
Pat let out a breath and closed her eyes again, taking her mind to some far off place.
“It was Luke,” I answered before she could. “Tucker’s grandfather. The one who brought the pack to your lands.”
She nodded and opened her eyes again. This time, her tears spilled freely. “You should have seen him. Tall, broad, and strong. Deadly too. There was no one like him. No Alpha before or since. Tucker has the look of him. Jared did too.”