by Dianna Love
When the Guardian squeezed, Brantley’s eyes bulged, his tongue enlarged and protruded as he strangled to death.
Dropping his slack body to the floor, the Guardian crossed the room and went down on one knee next to Cole’s wolf. Without looking away from the wolf, he said, “You may send the woman now, Rory.”
Tess didn’t wait for Rory to speak.
She leaped over him as one of the men guarding the room crossed over to Rory and squatted down, speaking low to him about his injuries.
When she reached Gray Wolf, Tess fell down next to his outstretched legs and stared into the blue eyes this wolf shared with Cole.
She said, “Hey, baby.”
“He doesn’t know you,” the Guardian explained gently, but that just pissed her off.
She pushed up to face the Guardian. “Yes, he does! You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s the man I plan to marry so don’t go telling me he doesn’t know me.”
All the low talking quieted.
Until now, these men had been casting glances at Gray Wolf, but making no move to go near him. It was like a collective intake of air as everyone swung their attention to the Guardian and waited to hear what he would say.
Or maybe they were waiting to see if he struck her down.
The Guardian studied her in such a bird-like way it was disconcerting. “You would marry Cole even though he is a shifter?”
“Well, duh. I’m saying it with him lying here as a wolf.” She glanced down as Gray Wolf made a pained sound on the next breath. “Do something, dammit. He’s dying.”
“I’m sorry. It was his choice.”
“What?” She looked up to face the Guardian straight on. “No, that’s not his choice. He would want to stay with me. If you’re the all-powerful Guardian, then tell Cole to change back so he can speak to us. He’s not healing as a wolf. He needs medical attention.”
In the silence that followed, Tess took in the other men who were looking away as if uncomfortable.
Twisting around in the other direction, she said, “Rory?”
“What our Guardian is trying to tell you is that Cole has been suffering with the mating curse, like Sammy was, but Cole managed to keep how badly affected he was from most of us until now. I think fighting Sammy snapped the wolf’s connection to Cole’s humanity and accelerated the influence of the curse.”
Rory took a shuddered breath and in a voice thick with emotion, he said, “We’ve lost him.”
“No!” She could have saved him with bonding as his mate. This was worse than the first time she lost him.
It was too much. She couldn’t let him go.
Tess yelled at the Guardian, “You will do something! Fix this!”
He repeated, “I can’t, child. Cole has taken it past the point any of us could intervene, even me. You are the only one who could have saved him. It was up to him to ask you to be his mate, but he was protecting you by not placing the burden on you to save him. All my shifters know that a mating bond must be freely given and accepted.”
Her eyes burned with tears. She pleaded, “He’s not a burden. He’s the one person I need so I can breathe. I can’t lose him.”
Shifting his gaze to Cole, the Guardian said, “I’ve never seen one of mine this far gone who came back to his humanity. It’s unfortunate, but the wolf has definitely taken full control.”
“Fuck all of you,” Tess said. “I am not losing him.”
Another intake of breaths sounded around the room.
She lowered herself to lie down close to Gray Wolf’s head so she could stare into his eyes.
They were definitely not human eyes.
Gray Wolf snarled, but there was no power behind it.
Reaching out, she put her hands on each side of his muzzle and got the wolf’s full attention.
“Listen to me, Gray Wolf. I will not give up Cole. Not to you or anyone else. You will give him back to me. If you do, I will be the best mate you two could ever want. I. Am. Cole’s. Mate. And he is mine. Give him back or ... take me with you.”
Energy hummed in her chest like a turbine on high.
Tingling started up her arms. She held her breath, but the wolf did not change back to human.
She tightened her grip just enough to get the wolf to focus, because his breathing kept growing weaker. She couldn’t use her hands to wipe the tears and sniffled her way through her words.
“Cole Cavanaugh and Gray Wolf, I love you both. I will love you and be your mate for eternity. If you go, my heart goes with you. Do you take me as your mate? Will you be here for me or leave me to face the world alone?”
The tingling intensified.
Gray Wolf shut his eyes.
She couldn’t catch her breath. No.
When the wolf blinked, Cole’s human eyes stared back at her. Those gorgeous blue eyes held the same worried look as the day he’d told her he would never come between her and her father.
Drawing in a deep breath, she said, “How many times do I have to tell you to stop making my decisions for me? I’ll handle my father if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m strong enough to accept your power and, if I’m not, then ... we go together. Now, are you going to accept my offer, or leave me to explain to these scary shifters that I wasn’t good enough to be your mate?”
Gray Wolf’s eyes close again.
Oh, no, that’s not what she wanted her last words to him to be. “Cole, please?”
Energy pulsed through her arms and a bright light glowed over her and Gray Wolf ... who changed into Cole, her beautiful naked man even though he was beat to hell and bleeding profusely.
He gave her a weak smile and said, “I accept you ... as my mate ... forever.”
The room erupted into a blast of cheers. She was laughing and crying.
Then Cole closed his eyes and his chest stopped moving.
She screamed, “No!”
Chapter 41
Three days later
Tess finished unpacking groceries and slammed the last cabinet, muttering to her empty kitchen the whole time. “He knew for weeks that he was suffering from that damned mating curse. Did he come looking for me? No. Did he tell me when he found me? No. Did he tell me when I told him I loved him? No.”
She shoved the empty cloth bag into a cabinet. “Men are stupid. They need to be taught how to discuss their feelings and curses and other crap.”
Two arms snaked around her waist from behind and she went still, holding her breath. When she exhaled, she said, “Please be real.”
“Hello, beautiful.”
Her heart thudded back to life at the sound of his hoarse words. She said, “You pissed me off.”
He hugged her and snuggled against her neck. “I’m sorry I scared you. How long was I out?”
“Three days, six hours and something like twelve minutes.” She hadn’t looked at her watch since the groceries were delivered, but she’d counted minutes the entire time Cole slept in her apartment.
“How did you get the Guardian to bring me here? Not that I’m complaining, just surprised.”
“Oh, he planned to take you wherever giant eagles live, but I put my foot down and reminded him that I was your mate and the only one who’d believed you could survive.”
“I shouldn’t have survived. I remember waking for a second and thinking I was dead, then the Guardian telling me the curse had been broken. It’s all blurry. I don’t understand. It should have been impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible if you believe enough, and I did,” she answered quietly, waiting to tell him everything that had happened until he’d had a little time to be awake. She’d been standing at the door to her bedroom when Cole’s eyes had opened and the Guardian had spoken those words about the mating curse.
She’d wanted to push the Guardian away so she could look into Cole’s eyes again, but Cole had passed out.
He clearly thought the Guardian had saved him.
She’d tell him the truth soon, but she wa
nted to just feel him, alive and breathing, next to her right now. The last three days had been a roller coaster through insanity, and she never wanted to get on that ride again.
First Cole had been dying, then he changed back to human form and she’d been relieved, only to have him black out from blood loss. She’d thought he had died after all, but the Guardian had put his hands on Cole’s chest and declared him alive ... and beginning to heal. Cole changed one more time on the way to her apartment. His men and their guardian hadn’t batted an eye.
At this point, she didn’t care if he changed into a giraffe. She’d find a place to live with tall ceilings where he wouldn’t have to bend over. He and Gray Wolf were hers.
She was a little nervous, but also excited about getting a chance to go into the woods with Cole and see Gray Wolf again soon.
But she never, ever wanted to see him with blood dripping from his fangs and wounds.
Once Cole’s black ops shifter friends had him settled in her apartment, the Guardian explained that Cole’s healing was accelerating from two shifts into his wolf. Evidently, as long as Cole was on the mend, and his wolf was calm, he wouldn’t shift again until he woke up. The Guardian explained that Tess had a calming influence on Gray Wolf now that she’d mated with Cole, which would also help him heal.
The only worry she’d had at that point was her father, but he’d shown up at her apartment right behind them, delivered by the Guardian’s men. The senator had been badly shaken, but he was alive and unharmed. She’d hugged him and cried, happy to have him back.
Instead of issuing orders and trying to take over the situation as he normally would, he’d stayed unusually quiet, subdued even, until the Guardian had turned as if to leave.
Her father had stepped over and shown her the man she’d grown up admiring when he thanked Cole’s boss for saving his life. The Guardian gave him a gracious reply before leaving. After giving Tess another hug and gaining her promise to come home so they could talk, her father had left with two of Cole’s friends who had been instructed to accompany the senator home.
That moment with The Guardian was a start, but her father could do more and possibly would, now that he knew first hand, and undeniably, that not all shifters were bad. At least the door had been opened for future conversations.
Remembering something she had to tell Cole, Tess first said, “I’m sorry about Sammy. I know you were close. I’m just so sad about him and Katelyn.”
Cole squeezed her and said nothing at first. After a quiet moment and in a voice laden with hurt, he said, “I am, too, but Sammy was ready to join Katelyn. He was suffering more every day. I refused to believe he was gone already, but he was, even before I saw him the last time. The Guardian tried to tell me, but I think I had to see for myself to accept that we couldn’t bring him back. I miss him so much it hurts, but I’m glad he’s at peace. I hope he and Katelyn are together.”
Her eyes misted. She’d thought of Sammy many times over the past three days, hurting for him, for Cole, and the rest of his team. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she said, “The Guardian said once you were better, he would call all of you together to say goodbye to Sammy.”
She could feel Cole nod against the side of her neck, as though unable to speak.
She gripped the powerful arm wrapped around her middle. “I don’t want to delay anything, but I’d like a little time together before we have to walk out the door and face everything.”
“I want that, too. I’m honestly surprised the Guardian doesn’t have us both in one of his facilities,” Cole said, snuggling his head against hers and giving her a kiss on the temple. The sound she made should be bottled and labeled happiness.
“That wasn’t happening and your boss knew it,” she explained. “When he said you would heal on your own, I made it clear that I wanted you at home—with me—and he agreed.”
Looking back on her confrontation with the Guardian, she realized how he’d allowed her to get away with ordering him around.
Rory and the other guys had stared at her as if she were a mouse swatting at a tiger.
But the Guardian had given her a smile and said, “Do you know what you are?”
“A pissed-off mate at the moment?” she’d replied, ready to get Cole out of there.
“You saved him. That required an extraordinary power. You must be a Gallize female.”
“But ... Cole told me about their traits. I don’t fit the criteria.”
“That is perplexing and we’ll have to review it again with you, but I don’t make a habit of arguing with success.”
The men had cheered again but this time just for her.
She’d been in tears and not caring who saw her cry.
When the room had quieted, the Guardian said, “You have earned the right to decide for your mate.” That’s when he arranged to have Cole brought to her place and left a contingent of shifters guarding them.
Cole brought her back to the present by nuzzling her neck, getting his tongue involved. She flashed hot all over and her energy that had been buzzing happily kicked up a notch, but satisfying that hungry energy needed to wait a little longer.
There was too much to talk about.
She had to make him understand, so he’d knock off this stupid martyr complex he had going when it came to her. She patted his arm. “I think the Guardian knew better than to cross me on this.”
Cole groaned, but it was all for show. Admiration flowed through his voice. “The Guardian respects power. I bet he loved you being all bossy and figured you’re not going away as long as I’m alive, which better be true.” Cole kissed her neck again and sighed. “He even said something similar about believing in the impossible last week when I told him there was no way for us to be together.”
She smiled over the compliment and over Cole thinking his Guardian was allowing her to stay around out of the goodness of his heart. She didn’t think a man like him made decisions that way. “The Guardian did say when you were feeling better to bring me to his bat cave so we could join forces to work on stopping the Black River wolf pack.”
“Bat cave?”
“Eh, he might have said his penthouse.”
Cole pulled her tighter. “You’re too adorable, even when you were ranting about me when I came into the kitchen. I really am sorry I scared you, baby.”
She swallowed the emotion choking her and said, “I’m not pissed about you scaring me, because you sleeping for three days is not anything close to watching you fight two massive animals to the death. But I’m furious that you would risk dying rather than give me the chance to decide about being your mate.”
His sigh brushed over her hair and he dropped his chin on her head. He tucked her closer to him and she went willingly. He said, “I don’t want to see you lose your father over a shifter after you lost your mother that way, or face conflict over being with someone like me.”
One day, she would teach this man to stop trying to give her a perfect world. All she wanted was one full of love. “My mother didn’t die because of a shifter. In fact, before I was kidnapped, I spoke to the alpha of a pride. He was there the day my mother died. He was trying to protect her. When the jackal tried to mug my mother, that alpha intervened and ended up arrested because of shifting. The shifting and the battle wasn’t his fault. I think my mother would have been just as terrified and still had a heart attack even if a human had mugged her. But that alpha was with her while she was still alive and passed along a message from her that I should follow my heart. That’s what I’m doing right now.”
“Your father will never accept ... me.”
“That’s his choice, just like it’s mine to choose who I want to spend my life with. I was terrified when they kidnapped him and unbelievably relieved when your boss and your team saved my father. I love him and he loves me, but our relationship has been little more than polite for a long time. That’s going to change. At the moment, I’m pissed at him, though, because he’s been interfering with my jo
b and not respecting my choices. When you’re healed, I’m going to find out who referred Brantley to my father, because I found out that my father got Brantley his position with SCIS.”
“We’ll find out, and it’ll be taken care of,” Cole said, sounding like a man about to lead a charge.
She spun in his arms. “See? There you go again. You’re fine with my dad not dictating my life, but you better understand that you and your bunch of Gallize shifters are not going to make my decisions, either.”
“Tess—”
“I saved you for me, Cole. My power bonded with yours.” She hadn’t planned to spit it out like that, but her emotions were running unchecked.
Cole stared at her. “I ... thought I dreamed about us bonding.”
“You don’t feel the bond?” For the first time, she feared having done it wrong.
He stood there, a mix of emotions flickering in his eyes. “Yes, but I thought, hell I don’t know. I thought the Guardian had done something to heal me and that was the reason for this incredible peace I feel. Even Gray Wolf is truly calm.” He lifted his hands to grasp her arms. “We really did bond ...?”
“Yes. As you lay there dying, my energy went into overdrive and I begged Gray Wolf to give you back to me,” she whispered. “I promised to be a good mate to both of you. Forever.”
Pure shock rode across his face, then a smile that she would remember for the rest of her life. He picked her up, kissing her as he swung her around.
She was laughing and crying. “Put me down you brute. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Holding you could never hurt me.” He pulled her back down in front of him. “You’re sure my power didn’t harm you in any way?”
She put a hand on his chest. “No, and for your information, your guardian said I’m a Gallize too, so you’re not the only hot shit here these days,” she bragged, not the least bit bashful about it. But as she thought again about how close she’d come to losing Cole, she couldn’t hold the smart-ass tone. Her voice broke, coming out a whisper. “That’s why I was able to save you when no one else could, not even the Guardian.”
Cole’s jaw dropped open. “But you don’t have two of the traits, just the blue-moon birthday month.”