Heart of a Dire Wolf

by Carol Van Natta

Back inside the storehouse, he rehydrated a calorie-rich soup mix and ate it fast. Remembering Skyla was uncomfortable with casual nudity around strangers, he wrestled her into the long underwear he’d brought for her. Her floppy body made it worse than trying to dress a full-sized, feels-like-the-real-thing blowup doll in hose, garters, and corset, complete with stripper pasties. Not that he had any experience with that, or had anything to do with placing one in the bunk of a drunken drill-rig manager and taking compromising photos.

  He readied disinfectant ointment, sterile gauze, and skin tape for the minor surgery, checked on Skyla, straightened up the gear, checked on Skyla, ran a quick outside patrol, checked on Skyla, and cursed the time gods for sleeping on the job.

  At last, he felt the close surge of Tinsel’s portal magic.

  He opened the storehouse door just in time to see Pendragor stepping out of the faintly glowing oval ring of a portal, wearing a swirling Cossack-style coat and tall ushanka hat made of what first looked like fur but was actually feathery brown moss.

  Nic led the way inside to where Skyla lay unnaturally still in the tent. Pendragor pulled out his wand from an inside coat pocket and pointed it at Skyla. Magic flared.

  “Two talismans, neck and hipbone, fully charged, with the beacon spell activated in both.” He tilted his head. “The remote vision and control spells are blocked, so why didn’t she block the recharge and the other two?”

  “Ask her after you remove them,” said Nic. He carefully turned Skyla to expose the back of her neck and pushed down the long underwear to bare her hip.

  Pendragor mouthed words without sound. Two talismans burst from Skyla’s flesh. Pendragor made a quick circle with his wand, and captured them together an iridescent sphere, just like he’d done for Nic’s talismans.

  Skyla didn’t twitch at all. Nic used the gauze to clean the rivulets and stanch the blood at the wound sites. Shifter magic would ordinarily heal them completely in an hour, but her energy was low.

  Pendragor’s lip curled in disgust as he eyed the talismans. “Change of plans. These are too dangerous. I’m taking these through the portal while Tinsel still has it open. You stay here. We’ll come back for you in an hour.” He strode out of the tent.

  Nic cleaned Skyla’s wounds and applied the bandages, then arranged her clothing again. The sensation of fairy portal magic winked out.

  He should be loading up everything to go back to Kotoyeesinay. Instead, he listened to advice from his rarely talkative tiger and stripped down to his long underwear, then got into the bed with Skyla. He eased himself under her so that she rested on top of him, her head on his chest. Share our strength with our mate, said his tiger.

  He closed his eyes. In his mind, threads of gold from his tiger brushed against threads of warm black from Skyla’s wolf, weaving together for a moment, then sliding apart and drifting loose. With each weave, his tiger showed him how to pulse magical power into the wolf threads. As more of the weaves began to stay together, Nic pulsed more magic through them that he hadn’t known he had. Two weaves twined together, then joined with more, swaying to soundless music.

  Skyla stirred in his arms. He ignored the siren song of sensuality and kept pulsing magic through the warm and shiny connection between them. He coaxed more threads into the complex pattern that made Celtic knots look simple.

  Nicolas...

  He grinned when he heard his name through their strengthening bond. His real name.

  Skyla, I love you. He’d been wanting to say it since she’d surprised him with her words earlier. When he’d finally gathered his wits enough to tell her, company had interrupted. You’re everything to me.

  I love you, too. I was afraid I’d told you too soon. Her words came with a deep pulse of resonating magic that made every part of him want to dance, especially the part of him in his pants.

  She rolled off of him onto her side. “Yeow!”

  He opened his eyes and saw her hand rub her hip, then slide under her hair at the back of her neck to touch the bandage. “Has Mauk been here?”

  “No, a fairy named Pendragor. I called him when I couldn’t wake you. The auction house talismans siphoned your magic to recharge themselves and phone home.”

  Skyla swore. “Siphoned my brain, too. I should have thought of that. No wonder I had trouble shifting. Where are the talismans now?”

  “Pendragor took them back through the portal.”

  She sat up and looked around, then turned to him. “You are a sinfully handsome man under all that hair.” She caressed his jaw with a butterfly touch. “I don’t know which I like better.”

  “I go through phases. I left it long for the caribou migration because it was low maintenance. When I’m working on an oil rig or in the field, I like the warmth, but in offices or in the summer, it’s too hot.”

  “How do you spend your time?” He smiled at her tactful phrasing. Jobs were sometimes a touchy subject around shifters who’d grown up in earlier eras and different traditions. At least most shifters didn’t pretend they were gods, unlike some ancient races he could mention.

  “In the human world, I’m a freelance petroleum geologist.” As with most magical species who interacted with humans, he’d had more than one name and more than one career. He sat up to face her, cross-legged. “When I was a young and arrogant jerk, I was a prize fighter in underground shifter fight rings. Kind of like mixed martial arts today, except with shifters, and fewer rules. My tiger… I needed the challenge, to prove myself against other predators. I nearly killed a man.”

  “Tell me?” Her question left it up to him as to whether to go on. Since he planned to be with this woman the rest of his hopefully long life, she deserved to know. “This was back in the Dirty Thirties, the height of the Great Depression. I went to New York for a big-prize match with a primate shifter, against the advice of my manager.”

  His father had forbidden it, which made Nic all the more determined to go. He remembered the whole disaster like it was yesterday. “The New York promoter delayed it for weeks and introduced me to his insatiable ‘sister’”—he made air quotes with his fingers—“who kept me distracted.” He blew out a breath. “Long story short, the promoter used the fights as a cover for his bootlegging operations. My opponent was really good, better than me and winning, except he was only human, and I didn’t know it. I hit him too hard, and he ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”

  “My sympathies.” She placed a warm hand on his knee. “That must have been a hard lesson. I think the older we are, the more lessons we learn.”

  His secret fear that his gentle mate would reject him melted away. “You are an amazing woman.” He captured her hand and kissed the back of it. “Are you hungry?” He looked at the time display on the satellite phone he’d set up as a makeshift clock. “Tinsel will open the portal in about fifty minutes so we can go back to Kotoyeesinay.” He snapped his fingers when a memory surfaced. “She sent you a gift.” He left the warm bed long enough to fish the small bag out of the pocket of his jacket, then handed it to her as he rejoined her.

  She untied the strings and peered inside. A slow, mysterious smile blossomed on her luminous face. “So, we’re all alone? No guards, no ghosts, no grumpy shifters?” Her hand caressed his thigh. The desire in her eyes sent his blood racing.

  “None.” He captured her wandering hand before it slid any farther, where his erection tented his long johns. He’d forget how to talk if she touched him there. “How are you feeling? You did just wake up from a coma.”

  “Hungry, but not for food.” She threaded her fingers through his. “Well enough to mate with you, if you’ll have me.” She hesitated, then frowned. “But you should see my dire wolf first.”

  Her worry pulsed through the thin bond, making his tiger grumble and thrash his tail. “My tiger says he’s seen your wolf, but that you should shift and show me, so we can get to the sex part.” He shrugged apologetically. “He’s not well socialized.”

  She blew out a
noisy breath, then crawled to the edge of the mattress and swung her legs around to stand. She put the bag on the camp table, then held out her hand. “Come on, then.”

  He rolled off the mattress and rose to take her hand, and they walked together out of the tent. He switched on one of the stand lights as they walked by it. He kissed her, then stood back.

  Her shift was slow for her, but still blazingly fast.

  She was a big damn wolf. As tall as her maned-wolf illusion, but massively muscled, with shiny gold eyes. Probably where all the Norse tales of the monster wolf Fenrir got started. Her luxuriously thick black fur made her wide shoulders look even wider, and her long snout sported seriously sharp teeth. If he were human, he wouldn’t stand a chance if she wanted him dead.

  Good thing you have me, then, said his smug tiger.

  Her brilliant eyes focused on him. She took a tentative step toward him, her thick claws clicking on the hard floor, then stopped.

  “I’m not scared,” he told her. “I would be, if I was prey, because I’m too young and pretty to die.”

  She crossed to him and butted her head against his waist. Their fragile mate bond came alive at the contact. What about your tiger? Doubts colored her question.

  He imagined if he’d had to hide his tiger just to keep friends, he’d be afraid, too. He stripped off his clothes and shifted.

  Nic-the-tiger stood eye to eye with Skyla-the-wolf. He chuffed, then took two stretching steps, long and lean, spreading his clawed toes each time.

  She yipped and sat. In a quick moment, she became human. She stood from her crouch and rubbed his ear. “You, Sir Tiger, are a show-off.”

  Nic was laughing by the time he became human again. “He is, isn’t he?” He bent to scoop up his clothes from the floor, then nearly dropped them when she stripped off hers with efficient grace. He’d seen her naked, but not awake and smiling and smelling of mouth-watering arousal.

  She backed into the tent, as if she didn’t want to take her eyes off him. He followed her, mesmerized by her small, rounded breasts with their bold, come-hither nipples. The dark thatch of her flat, downy pubic hair below her rounded stomach glistened with moisture. He barely stopped himself from drooling.

  “Wanna see Tinsel’s gift?”

  She took hold of his hand, which had been reaching for her of its own volition, and held it fast. She grabbed the bag off the table and emptied its contents. Six condoms landed on his palm.

  Goddess, he hadn’t even thought beyond the ecstasy of tasting her. When they were both ready, he wanted cubs with her, but they weren’t even mated yet. Not to mention, they were both technically homeless and jobless.

  She folded his fingers around the packets and twitched an eyebrow at him. “Be a shame not to put her gift to good use.”

  He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “Downright insulting, I’d say.”

  He wrapped his arms around her to tumble them both onto the mattress. Her skin against his felt better than silk.

  She rained kisses down his neck and onto his chest, then licked a trail to his nipple. She flicked her tongue back and forth rapidly across it, sending sparks of desire straight to his straining erection.

  She looked up at him, eyes hazed with heat. “Our bond… I’m already...” She shivered. “We ache.”

  He rolled her onto her back. “Let me take care of you.” Forever, added his tiger.

  He kissed her, sliding his tongue along hers for a long moment, then skipped her sassy nipples to dive straight for her core. She spread her knees wide and thrust her mons up to meet his questing mouth. He took his pleasure in the first few licks of her addicting juices, then slithered his tongue up to explore her swollen nub. Three circles around and across, and her whole body shuddered in orgasm. The first of many, if he had anything to say about it. Goddess, he loved this woman.

  13

  Skyla nearly cried from the relief as her muscles began to relax. Though her brain came back online, she could feel the desire building in her already. If this wasn’t wolf heat, she’d probably die from the real thing.

  She stroked his dark, curly hair. “I want to taste you, too.” She wanted to give him as much pleasure as he’d given her

  He looked up at her with golden tiger eyes. “I won’t last if you do.”

  She sat up and slid her hips out from under him. “You’re as tightly wound as I was. Let me take the edge off.” She picked up one of the condoms scattered on the bed. “Then we can do it right.”

  He flopped onto his back, grinning. “When you put it like that...”

  She trailed a hand downward and circled her fingers around him, then rubbed a thumb across the top to smear the bead of liquid over the thick, swollen head. “Your scent is fantastic.” She turned so she had full access, then plunged her mouth over him as far as she could go.

  He gasped out an oath.

  She bathed him wetly with her lips and tongue, getting a feel through the mate bond for what he liked. There would be time for teasing later. Right now, he needed the release, so she put her mind to it.

  She hollowed her cheeks with suction and curled her tongue against the sensitive area below the head. In and out, fast and wet. He shouted her name as he came, hips thrust forward, stiff, pumping his warm seed into her hungry mouth.

  She only let him go when he began to relax. “Your taste is fantastic, too.”

  “Oh, yeah?” His look was a mock challenge. “Come sit on my face and tell me that.”

  She laughed and held up a condom. “Before or after we have our wicked way with each other?”

  Indecision crossed his face for a long moment, but then he took the condom from her and tore it open. “I love you. Mating first. Playtime later.”

  Her inner wolf whined in anticipation. Her human hormones had her shaking by the time he’d finished rolling the condom on his already rock-hard erection. Thank the goddess for shifter strength and recovery. He patted his thighs. “You on top. I want us to see each other come.”

  She swung her leg over, then leaned forward. Together, they guided him to her entrance and slowly in. She started a slow rhythm, but soon sped up because he felt so deliciously good. He licked his fingers and reached out to twirl her swollen, aching nipples, then blew gently on them to make them pucker even more. She loved his sensual instincts.

  Through their strengthening bond, she felt his second climax building fast. She reached down between them to curl a finger over her engorged clit, letting his thrusts set the timing for her strokes.

  A surge of magic welled up in her and poured into the mate bond. She cried out when his shifter magic flowed through and danced across her skin, saturating higher thought with pure sensation.

  His eyes were fully tiger gold as he shouted her name and thrust into her hard enough to lift her off the bed. His first pulse sent her over the edge into the fireworks of spasming release.

  The woven cord of the mate bond swelled to swallow them both, melding their strengths and healing their weaknesses. He opened his heart, and so did she. For a long moment, she was a blend of Skyla and wolf and tiger and Nic, their magic holding them all together. We are one.

  The mate bond subsided to become a slender, unbreakable connection quietly shining between them.

  She returned to the real world to find herself lying on Nic’s chest, wrapped in his arms, with him still inside her. A flush of pleasure washed through her with each rise and fall of his chest.

  Nic stroked her hair. “That was…”

  “Yeah, it was,” she agreed.

  His scent and hers were commingling to make new ones they would share. He smelled like sunshine and home and love. And a bit like wet fur. She laughed. He slipped out of her, and she laughed again and rolled aside so he could deal with the condom. She watched him with unabashed possessive delight. This gorgeous, graceful, sensual man was hers, and she was his.

  She ran fingers through her tangled loose hair and encountered the bandage on the back of her neck. She p
ulled it off, wincing because it took some of her hair with it. She was grateful that shifting and the mate bond had healed her exit wounds. Having full magic again felt wonderful. “I’d kill for a shower.”

  “We have a private room and spa bathtub waiting for us at Tinsel’s bed and breakfast in Kotoyeesinay.” His eyes gleamed with anticipation. “Tigers like water.”

  “Sounds heavenly.” She checked the time on Nic’s phone. “If we pack everything in twenty minutes, we’ll get there soon…” she trailed off and listened to her magical senses. A portal was opening, far away, to the south. With their mating, she suddenly realized she’d gained Nic’s ultra-sensitivity to magic. It wasn’t fairy magic.

  “Wizards.” They said the word at the same time.

  Nic cursed colorfully as they scrambled into their warm clothes. Unfortunately, she was stuck with her athletic shoes, but she used a bit of magic to waterproof them and give them better traction.

  Nic scooped up the phone and pressed a three-button sequence. While he told the Kotoyeesinay sheriff’s department dispatch to warn Tinsel and Pendragor, she took a moment to evaluate the threat and their own resources.

  “Are we defending or running?” she asked Nic.

  “Defending. Help is on the way...” He trailed off, staring at the darkest corner of the room. A faintly glowing green sphere with inner sparkles floated as if on a breeze. “What is that?”

  “The spirit of Oak, Moss’s lover who died in the attack.” She crossed to Nic and took his hand. “I guess the moon goddess decided you get to share my gift for seeing the not-yet-dead.”

  “Hearing them, too.” He turned to her with a puzzled look. “He told me to tell you to take your fingers out of your ears.”

  “What?” Realization dawned. “Oh, I know.” She unraveled the tiny spell she’d cast earlier, to tell the ghosts to shut up and leave her alone.

  The faintly glowing sphere floated closer and enveloped their joined hands. Enemies at the southern border. Light the ring. We will show the heart. Never again.