Vynn (War Cats Book 4)

by Grace Brennan

  Bite her this time, bite her, his tiger chanted inside him.

  Fuck, he couldn’t do that yet. They hadn’t even discussed being mates yet. Letting go of the delicate skin between his teeth was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he managed it just as his dick began pulsing inside her and he came.

  He thrust inside her a few more times as he came, and it felt like he poured everything he was, his very essence, inside her. Dropping his forehead to her shoulder, he heaved for breath, the arm he had propped against the couch trembling, his whole body weak.

  “Fuck, Ashley.”

  And that was it. That was all he could manage. His brain and body were so drenched in pleasure that he could barely stand or complete a coherent thought.

  She laughed breathlessly. “I thought we just did.”

  Chuckling, he gently pulled out of her, and then helped her sit on the couch. Her body was trembling with exhaustion and pleasure, and pride welled up in him. He did that. That was all him.

  Shit, he was like a puffed-up rooster right now.

  But the pride eased when he thought about the talk they still had to have, replaced with, fuck him, worry. All these different emotions he never felt, he was feeling them all now with her. But she never reacted like he thought she would, so he couldn’t help but feel worry.

  Huffing a breath, he pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over her. They’d worked up a bit of a sweat, but it would quickly cool now that they weren’t as active, and he didn’t want her getting cold.

  He was basically a fucking brand-new man.

  “I have to dispose of the condom. Please don’t run away while I’m in the bathroom.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ashley watched Vynn walk toward the bathroom, her eyes dipping from his muscular back to his taut ass, flexing as he walked. She felt like a limp pile of noodles, melting into the couch, in a haze of pleasure and exhaustion. Damn, she’d never come that hard. It’d been amazing.

  No, she wasn’t going anywhere, couldn’t even if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to. There was still a part of her that was pissed off and hurt over his phone call to her brother, but she thought she could work past it. She wouldn’t have come here tonight if she hadn’t.

  She’d thought all day about what Zane said. She couldn’t lie, it was a big motivator in her coming here tonight. But mostly what she’d gotten from his words was no one was perfect. Not Vynn, and certainly not her. She couldn’t truly fault him if what he’d really wanted to do was help her.

  And she had to admit, that seemed likely. He’d told her more than once that he thought her plans were a mistake.

  Knowing that, and then having Zane tell her that Vynn needed her, that he was going to self-destruct—well, nothing could keep her away. Little in her life had made sense until she met him. And a world that didn’t have him in it, well… she didn’t want to be in that world, either.

  So after stewing over it all day, there she was. Ready to fix what was broken between them. Because he might need her, but the truth was, she needed him just as much.

  “You’re still here.”

  She looked up at the sound of his voice, unable to help the smile that crept over her face as she caught sight of him. His naked form was powerful, his spiky hair sticking up in every direction, eyes still whiskey brown, silver claw marks on his cheek glinting in the light.

  Opening the blanket, she patted the cushion next to her. He sat down, taking up more space than any man had a right to—Lord, he was huge—and then immediately pulled her into his arms.

  “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

  She smiled as she snuggled in. “I didn’t have any desire to leave this time. I just freaked out the first time we had sex. This is going to sound cheesy, but I came out of it feeling like I wasn’t the same person anymore. And I was determined to go back to who I was before I came here. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

  He kissed the side of her head. “I’m glad. And it wasn’t cheesy. I felt the same way. Can I take the fact that you’re here, in my arms right now, as you forgiving me for calling your brother?”

  Shrugging, she exhaled as she thought. “I’m still upset about it. But I understand that you did it because you thought it was helping me. Just—don’t ever do shit like that again. I don’t think I could forgive it twice.”

  “In the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you something. I thought it was something you should talk to your brothers about, but maybe you need to know now. And I don’t want you to get upset because I knew and didn’t tell you.”

  Brow twitching, she leaned back and met his eyes. “What is it?”

  “We talked about your dad. Me and Sam. He’s who I was talking to. He said your mom took off when she was pregnant, so he and Garret knew they had a sibling, but they didn’t know to look for you. They didn’t know your mom died and you were with you dad. Sam said he never would have let you stay with Hank if they’d known.”

  Her breath caught as pain simultaneously blossomed in her chest and then melted away. “They… they didn’t know? At all?”

  He shook his head, brushing her hair from her face. “No. They would have come for you if they had, baby.”

  Tears burned her eyes and she looked away for a moment, trying to compose herself. “Did they tell you if my dad found them?”

  Wariness flashed across his face. “They did, but I think that’s best discussed between you guys. Please don’t ask me to tell you. Meet them. Talk everything out with them.”

  Blowing out a breath, she searched his eyes, finally nodding. “Okay. I’ll ask them. And thank you for telling me. It means a lot, knowing they didn’t leave me with him on purpose.”

  Smiling, he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “You’re welcome.”

  “Now we need to talk about your revenge. What happened when you got the scar and why do you want to hurt them so badly?”

  A muscle jumped in his cheek as he shook his head, looking away. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  Putting a hand gently to his face, she turned him back to look at her. “That’s not how this works. I don’t lay my soul bare for you while you keep everything locked up inside.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, the muscle in his cheek still ticking. “Fine. Myself and some of the warriors went to Eagle Creek about a year ago. Zane and Kian were living there, and Zane called me, said Kian was in trouble. A small contingent of us went, and we believed it was the shifters there, specifically the Rocky River fighters, who were after Kian and trying to hurt or kill him. You also have to understand that the things I learned at my father’s knee were harsh lessons. Ones I came to embrace. And a lot of them centered around the War Cats’ superiority.

  “So I went in believing these were shifters on the bottom of the food chain. Me and Ian, the leader of the fighters, got into it, and words were exchanged. We both shifted and started to fight. He’d just raked his claws down my cheek when Luke, one of the shifter Enforcers, stepped in. His gift is forcing shifts, and he used too much power in his voice. I shifted back to human, but me and my tiger were knocked out after, and he wasn’t able to heal me in the moment. And when I finally came to, he refused to.”

  She frowned, cocking her head. “Why did he refuse to? You said something the other day about him trying to teach you a lesson, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. A lesson in humility, I guess. And he says I deserved the scar, and until I can accept that, he won’t heal it.”

  “Did you deserve it, though?”

  He looked away for a moment, shaking his head. “No. The War Cats are better than other shifters. It’s a fact of life. I was only letting that be known.”

  Mouth popping open, she stared at him, eyebrows high. “Oh, come on, Vynn. You don’t seriously believe that, do you?”

  The muscle was ticking in his jaw again and he gazed at the portrait above the mantel. “It’s how I was taught.”

&nb
sp; “All I heard just then was you avoiding the question. I was also taught to hate my animal. Does that make it right?”

  His lips tightened, and when he looked at her, his eyes were a very light whiskey brown, and a growl was coming from his chest. “You were taught wrong.”

  “Maybe you were, too. By your standards, I’m inferior. Is that really how you see me?”

  “No, not at all. You’re not inferior. You’re better than me in all ways.”

  “No one is inferior or superior, least of all me. We’re equals. But if that’s how you believe, why can’t you admit that you’re not better than others?”

  Eyes going back to the portrait, he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m hungry. Want something to eat?”

  “No, I ate before I came here.”

  Nodding, he stood and jerked his pants on. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  Eyebrows high, she watched him leave the room, his back rigid. What the hell had just happened? He went from being open and willing to talk, to completely shutting down.

  The things he was taught were just as damaging as the things she was. How did he not see that? How was he able to see how evil her dad was, and how wrong the things she was led to believe were, but not recognize it in his dad?

  He was being willfully blind and stubborn as fuck.

  Pot calling kettle, her fox said.

  At least I’m trying to change. At least I acknowledge it now.

  Point taken.

  Her eyes strayed to the portrait and she stared into the cold face of his father. “I think I hate you,” she whispered.

  Vynn stared into the fridge, not seeing anything appetizing. Hell, he’d never even really been hungry. He’d just wanted to escape Ashley’s questions. To get away from her probing gray-green gaze.

  Because you know she’s right, his tiger said.

  No, she’s not. Everything I believe is true.

  The cat snorted. You don’t even really believe it much. I’m in your head, remember? I know you don’t really believe it. Why are you still clinging to it?

  Vynn didn’t have an answer for that. He didn’t even know if he could acknowledge it. And he didn’t fucking know why.

  He was being a hypocritical jackass with Ashley, but he could barely even make himself admit it in his mind. This whole time, he’d been thinking she was the broken one and he needed to fix her, but fuck if it wasn’t him who was broken.

  Maybe too broken. Ashley was making huge strides to fix herself, with little help from him, it seemed. But he couldn’t even bring himself to admit his thinking was all fucked up.

  She might just be better off without him weighing her down.

  Fuck that, his tiger snarled, surprising Vynn with his ferocity. You are not going to walk away from her or let her walk away from you. You need her. And she needs you. You sure as fuck don’t deserve her, but she doesn’t deserve for you to walk away. That will damage her in a way she might not recover from. She’s too fragile right now.

  Was she? Vynn wasn’t sure. It seemed to him that she had an inner core of steel. But his tiger was right. She deserved for him not to bail on her. Odds were, when she realized how fucked up he was, she’d do the bailing. His gut clenched at the thought, but it would probably be best for her.

  “Hey,” she said from behind him, waiting until he faced her before she continued. “I’m confused as hell right now. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. Everything I’ve believed for years was flipped upside down. I feel like someone new, and I don’t know who that person is yet. I’m feeling things, and I’ve never wanted to feel anything. I don’t know anything anymore. Except that I feel pulled to you in a way I’ve never felt, and I don’t think I can do this without you. So don’t close yourself off from me. I won’t ask questions, and I won’t probe into things you don’t want me delving into. But I need you to be in the present with me.”

  Fuck, the confusion in her eyes and the conviction in her tone about did him in. And he felt like the jackass everyone believed him to be, because he’d once again been proving that all he thought about was himself. She was going through something huge, and he’d been spending more time worrying about himself than her.

  He was a fucking dickhead of the highest order.

  Smiling softly at her, he reached up and pushed a tangled curl behind her ear. “You’ve always got me, baby. That’s one thing that will never change. You’re my mate. It’s for life.”

  Her eyes widened and she smiled back at him. “I was wondering if you were ever going to tell me about the mates thing.”

  “So you know, too?” he asked, curious. “I never could tell if you did or not.”

  “My fox kept saying mine the day you brought me here, but she didn’t know what it meant. Then Kelly said the word mate, and she recognized it as what you are to me. As to what she meant by mine. I was curious, so I asked Kelly and Jessica what it meant, and they told me.”

  He studied her eyes, wanting to make sure she understood the importance. “It’s a huge thing for a shifter to find their mate, Ash. It’s everything. You’re everything. And it’s not something that ever goes away. If we don’t claim each other, if we go our separate ways, we’ll never feel complete. And there will never be anyone who can be with us like we need. I don’t even think our animals would allow it. I just want to make sure you understand how big being mates is.”

  Her brow furrowed as she looked at him. “I definitely understand that. I already feel like I’d go crazy if we were separated. But what do you mean by claim each other?”

  “They didn’t explain that part?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “It’s different for different species. Some shifters mark with a claw, some with a bite. Tigers do it with a bite, but I’m not sure how foxes do it. Claiming locks the mating bond in place, makes it permanent.”

  “It feels pretty permanent to me already.”

  He nodded, leaning in to kiss her gently. “It does to me, as well, but claiming is permanent on a whole other level. We don’t have to, though, just because we’re mated. My tiger wants to, but we don’t have to rush this. Whenever you’re ready is perfectly fine with me.”

  Slowly nodding, she pursed her lips as she studied him. “I want to, but I don’t think I’m ready for it yet. I’m still so freakin’ jumbled up inside. I want to make sense of my emotions, sort everything out, before we take the final step.”

  “We’ll wait as long as it takes,” he promised her.

  Fuck, waiting was going to be torture. But if she wasn’t truly ready for it, neither was he. Being mated, he was learning, was a whole lot of taking into consideration what his mate wanted and needed, and then doing exactly that.

  He’d lost sight of that earlier, when all he was thinking about was himself. But he wasn’t going to again. It wasn’t about him any longer. It was all about Ashley.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ashley knocked quietly on Vynn’s office door, venturing inside when he waved her in. He was on the phone, and it reminded her of the last time she was in here. Her gaze immediately shot to the empty space where the desk used to sit, and she cringed a little inside.

  Now that the anger and hurt had dissipated for the most part, she was feeling a little sheepish over what she’d done. Or rather, what her gift had done. Or what she’d done by using her gift. She wasn’t sure what the correct wordage there was, but it all meant the same thing.

  She held up her hands, staring at them as she flexed her fingers. Sure, she felt sheepish, but hell, her gift was flippin’ awesome. Being able to shock someone was pretty cool. And the part of her who’d been abused, verbally and physically, who’d been beaten down and made to hate herself—she reveled in having the power to fight back in a big way.

  She just wished she’d found her gift when her dad was still around. Fuck, she would have loved to give that bastard what he deserved. But she thought she knew why her gift hadn’t manifested until recently.<
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  For so long, she’d completely buried any and all emotions. Kept them all tightly under lock and key, pushed so deeply down inside her that she hadn’t been able to access them at all. And it was finally feeling her emotions that had unlocked her gift.

  When she’d been so hurt and furious that she couldn’t contain it, it made her gift possible. Literally at her fingertips. And it had broken free in spectacular fashion.

  But she had to learn how to control it, or she’d never be able to touch someone when she was worked up. At least Vynn would know not to make her angry.

  She smiled at the thought, but it faded quickly. She didn’t know how she was going to harness her emotions. Now that they’d broken free, they were running rampant, and she didn’t know how to wrangle them, much less how to begin sorting them out. She had a shitload of work ahead of her.

  Her smile came back as she stared at Vynn. Her mate. True, the thought of all the work she had ahead of her was daunting, but it was what had to be done if she wanted a life with him. And she did, desperately.

  With him as a reward, it made the work worth it. It made it something she had to do. She wanted to be claimed by him. Wanted to claim him, however foxes did it. She wanted it all.

  Ending the call, he turned to her with a smile, walking over to give her a kiss. “Hey, baby. That was Kian. The snow’s melted off a lot today, and he wants us all to run the property. Make sure everything’s secure.”

  She glanced out of the window, taking in the bright midmorning sun. She’d spent the night here, sleeping in Vynn’s bed with him the for the first time, and had woken more rested and at peace than she could ever remember waking.

  And the snow hadn’t been falling anymore, the sun shining brightly and melting the accumulation. As much as she’d been anxious for the snow to melt so she could leave, now she was hoping it took its time. She didn’t feel the need to leave now, and the snow was beautiful as it reflected the sun.