But not right this instant. Not when my mate and I were alone with no possibility of interruption for the first time in the recent past and for the last time in the foreseeable future.
I took a deep breath of the pine-scented air and relaxed into the tranquil ambiance. Warm sunlight percolated gently through leaves above our heads, giving the impression of a frozen moment stolen from time. The glowing orb’s gentle caresses loosened tense muscles and made me bold.
“Okay,” I agreed. But I didn’t release Hunter’s nape from my grasp. Instead, I nudged his bent legs further apart and eased myself closer until we were almost chest-to-chest, he on his bare bum and I on my denim-coated knees. Using the hand that had been searching for injury along the base of his skull, I drew my companion in until I could whisper into his ear: “But first, I expect a reward for good behavior.”
This was the second time I’d acted like a brazen hussy around Hunter and it wasn’t lost upon me that the uber-alpha had never been the one to initiate physical contact between us in the past. But we were going into battle tomorrow, which made the concept of flirting coyly while hoping for reciprocation seem unbearably slow. What if one of us didn’t make it out alive and I went to my grave never having shared more than a single kiss with this magnetic uber-alpha who had once called me his mate?
To the brave go the spoils, I thought, nibbling a line of seduction down Hunter’s earlobe. My skin quivered with anticipation as I waited to see how the uber-alpha would respond.
Before, Hunter had acted hesitant every time I flung myself into his embrace. But not this time. Now, rock-hard arms glistening with sweat rose up to surround me and Hunter’s scent enveloped my body like a heady cloud of warm perfume. I relaxed into the sassafras aroma as if resting by a warm fire on a cold winter night.
Irresistible.
The spicy scent cradled my chin and cheeks and, to my delight, Hunter’s fingers soon followed suit. “Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, rough callouses tickling across my skin as his fingers touched me lightly as butterfly wings.
In response, I reached up and stroked a lone finger across my companion’s chiseled jaw. He hadn’t taken the time to shave this morning, and the scratchy stubble of an incipient beard attempted to grab hold of my skin. I didn’t mind—I felt exactly the same way. Putting so much as an inch between myself and my companion’s magnetic pull was impossible.
“I don’t want to lose you tomorrow,” I whispered by way of reply, my voice husky with desire but my stomach hollowing out with fear. Unlike my wolf, I had a hard time believing we’d both make it out of tomorrow’s battle unscathed.
“You won’t lose me. If you let me in, I’ll stay there.” Hunter’s words were a firm promise and he lifted me into his lap as easily as if I were a pine cone. I didn’t miss the way my partner was shielding my skin from the rough debris on the forest floor even though I was the one who wore clothes while he didn’t.
Yes, his chivalry was alluring. But it didn’t quite knock me off the mental trail I’d been following even as I lowered my arm to trace a forefinger across the rope-like muscles that spanned his arm from shoulder to fingertip.
“But I have a pack to take care of,” I elaborated. “And you said yourself that you don’t understand packs.”
There it was—the real roadblock that had been standing in our way this entire time. Even as the words left my mouth, I felt abruptly chilled, sweat evaporating from damp fabric clinging to my skin as an errant breeze drifted down through the canopy to ruffle my hair. I leaned far enough back in Hunter’s arms so I could make out his eyes and I held my breath as I waited for his reply.
“I’ll learn packs,” Hunter rumbled easily. “They’re important to you, so they’re important to me.”
His firm hands cupped my butt, rocking me gently forward until his hard length of manhood rubbed against my cleft. The seam of my pants pressed inward to chafe with exquisite agony against my most sensitive spot and I gasped out an “Oh!” of surprise.
For some unknown amount of time, I lost my train of thought as Hunter led us in an excruciating dance, all slow movement and sparks of tangled nerves and bodies. But he wasn’t quite done with his promises yet.
“For you, I’ll be nice to Ginger,” Hunter murmured, his voice becoming huskier by the moment. “I’ll bond with Cinnamon and Glen. And I’ll free Lia if it’s the last thing I do.” His lips drifted down to taste and suck at my salty neck, the prickle of his beard sending me into a frenzy.
“Hunter...” I gasped, demanded. I was abruptly done with words and ready for his lips to become otherwise engaged. My exploring fingers turned into claws drawing him closer and I attempted to merge my mate’s body with my own.
“You’re right,” Hunter concluded. “Now’s not the time to talk about our pack.”
Then I was abruptly shirtless, a breeze replacing my companion’s questing fingers as the forest air encircled my exposed skin. I barely had time to shiver, though, before Hunter had pulled me back closer to his body, his hands sending frissons of pleasure across my sensitive belly as they hunted for the snap of my jeans.
I wanted to go there. But I pushed his fingers aside while murmuring a gentle rejection. “Not so fast, big guy.”
Hunter had put me in the driver’s seat here atop his body, and I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity. Placing hands on his rock-hard shoulders to steady myself, I rotated my clad hips in slow circles atop his erection. Then I hummed with pleasure as the friction kindled swirling eddies of pleasure deep within my core.
I half expected my partner to flip me over onto my back and take the lead there and then. But, instead, he merely tilted up my chin so our gazes united once more. The uber-alpha’s pupils were now so dilated with desire that his pale retinas were nearly non-existent, and I could have sworn I saw his wolf reflected in the dark depths within.
He swallowed me into a deep, bruising kiss. And only after we were both thoroughly breathless did he release my mouth long enough to whisper: “You’re the boss. Do your worst.”
Still, the bloodling’s fingers continued to trail feather-light pathways across the exposed skin of my arms, my collarbone, my neck as if he couldn’t quite bear to relinquish control. Goose bumps rose on my forearms as I struggled to focus on anything other than the needy ache that rose in my center in response to Hunter’s caress.
But then my mate suited actions to words, leaning back on his elbows so I was given free rein to explore his body just as I’d requested. He was marvelous. All hard ridges and craggy folds, the power of his wolf nearly seeping out the seams to mesh with his human form.
I ran a tentative hand across my partner’s muscular chest, abruptly unsure about what to do with this wolf who I’d apparently tamed. What to do with this power that Hunter had so easily granted me.
And then my own inner beast was there beside me. We fit, she whispered, pressing our splayed hands onto Hunter’s chest to brace ourselves as we twisted and twined against him. Slowly, gently, my animal half guided me into a soft bump and grind until my passion was stoked back up to the boiling point and I was once again inflamed with desire. Soon, I was mewling needy little whimpers that had nothing to do with my inner wolf and had everything to do with the basest extreme of my own human nature.
It was only when jeans slid down off my body, one leg releasing then the other, that I realized my wolf was long gone and it was only Hunter and me dancing once more. My mate’s fingers left trails of fire shimmering down my thighs, across my hips, eddying in circles around my breasts. And in response I reached forward with hungry hands, guiding Hunter’s cock toward my slick opening.
“Shh, not quite yet.” The uber-alpha had been willing to let me do as I pleased before. But now that the moment of truth was nigh, he didn’t quite trust that I was adequately aroused. Instead, clever fingers slipped into my soft slit, gently teasing velvety skin as fingertips tested, tweaked, turned.
I writhed beneath his hand, qui
vering with need. Then foil tore and a condom encircled his throbbing shaft. Hunter had come prepared for more than simple sword fighting this morning.
I thought my partner, my mate, was less moved than I by this moment of exquisite joining. But then I heard his gasp turn into a moan as I slid down over his hard length, my center achingly sensitive and at the same time yearning to be filled. His mouth plundered mine and I gasped against his lips as our bodies and souls united.
“You...are...my...pack,” he ground out as firm fingers bit into my buttocks. Then, he was pounding, pushing, feasting, sucking.
Our legs wound together as we rolled, and I hardly noticed the sharp leaf tips biting into my bare skin. It was impossible to tell who was leading and who was following now as each body engulfed the other.
Sassafras and sweat. Wolf and human.
We met. We merged.
We exploded.
Chapter 19
When I dragged my dirty, battered, and exhausted body back through the hotel-room door that afternoon, all I wanted was a shower. Hot water, fluffy towels, clean sheets—the promised trio sounded near miraculous after five hours of heavy sparring and the momentous pleasure that had come before.
But the expressions on my pack mates’ faces proved that the comforts of home would have to wait. Flicking my attention from shifter to shifter, I traced their displeasure, anger, and worry back to its source.
At the epicenter of the discontent, I wasn’t at all surprised to find Ginger holding her cell phone out toward me while shooting virtual daggers at my companion. Yep, our ill-fated vote yesterday hadn’t done pack cohesion any favors.
When I saw the image on the trouble twin’s small screen, though, I swallowed hard and stopped worrying about the two warring shifters’ incompatibility. Because Ginger had found a photo of Lia, but the girl no longer looked like the happy, fresh-faced kid who had piled into our car as recently as yesterday morning. No, this Lia resembled a Holocaust survivor with a bloodied face, mussed hair, and haunted eyes. This Lia looked broken.
I fell backwards into a chair, unable to hold myself erect when faced with the reality of my own failure to protect my fellow shifters. At least she’s alive, I reminded myself. Or Lia had been alive when the photo was taken. I averted my eyes from the phone, unable to meet the girl’s eyes for a second longer.
“Push play,” Ginger demanded. Only then did I notice what would have been obvious to anyone even a bit more tech savvy than I was. A little arrow within a circle smack dab in the center of the image proved that I was actually looking at the landing page for a video rather than at a still photo. Unfortunately, based on the heavy tension in the air around me, I didn’t think I’d like what I was about to see any better than I’d liked the preview.
With trembling fingers, I tapped the play icon even as Hunter stepped up beside me. One warm hand fell onto my shoulder, but this time I had a feeling the uber-alpha was seeking support as much as giving it. And as we watched the young shifter on screen suck in a gasp that was almost a sob, Hunter’s breathing turned similarly erratic beside me.
“Here you go, Talon. What do you think? An acceptable sacrifice?”
We couldn’t see anyone other than Lia on screen, and the muffled male voice was digitally altered to hide the speaker’s identity. Lia’s captor could have been anyone.
Still, his words shot through me like fire. Talon. The exact same name Crew had mentioned as his sponsor within the SSS.
Now we know who we need to kill, my wolf growled deep within our shared belly. And I didn’t even consider slapping her down. If this Talon was responsible for both Lia’s kidnapping and for Crew’s descent to the dark side, then my animal nature could be as bloodthirsty as she wanted in defense of our pack. We’d find out who Talon was, and together we’d take him down.
Then my blood ran cold because Lia spoke at last. And the single word that emerged from the girl’s split lips wasn’t one that I’d expected to hear in a million years. “Hunter,” she moaned.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the sound from my brain. No, I must have picked that up wrong. It wasn’t possible.
As my stomach sank into my boots, I stared up at the shifter standing inches away from me. The shifter who’d made love to me today with—I’d thought—powerful feelings that matched my own. The shifter who’d fought by Lia’s side at the campground yesterday morning and who had seemed honestly concerned about Cinnamon’s fate a few hours later.
Over and over again, I’d given the uber-alpha the benefit of the doubt despite the evidence stacking up against him. As Ginger had pointed out so acerbically, Hunter had repeatedly shown up at decidedly suspicious moments. He’d admitted to seeing no point in a pack, and yet he’d stuck around to ingratiate himself into the good graces of both the halfies within our little group—me and Lia—while roundly ignoring everyone else. He’d even cast me out of my old clan, for crying out loud, ensuring that I had no way to protect myself from his machinations.
And what had I done in response? I’d bent over backwards to make up excuses for the uber-alpha’s behavior. He was a bloodling, I told myself, and not especially socially adroit. He was employed by the Tribunal to hunt down the SSS, so of course he’d be poking around in the land of the missing halfies.
He had a good heart.
That’s gotta be my weakest effort at voluntary stupidity to date, I berated myself. After all, hadn’t I only begun trusting Hunter after he used the four-letter M word? Was I really so desperate that I’d accepted the first psychopath who gave me the time of day?
Yep. Yep, apparently I was.
Or at least, I had been. Now, I pushed myself out of the chair so violently that it fell over, one hard wooden leg banging against Hunter’s bruised shins in the process. My companion winced, but remained standing tall and firm, waiting for me to draw the inevitable conclusion from the evidence placed before me.
I opened my mouth, but found I was unable to speak. Instead, my body vibrated with pain as if Hunter were biting into me once again, just as he’d done to catch my attention in the forest earlier that day. Only this time around, his sharp lupine teeth seemed to move up and settle around my chest, pushing all air out of my lungs and spearing my heart.
I wanted to wail and moan at the agony, but instead I pierced the uber-alpha with an angry gaze. For some crazy reason, Hunter had his head cocked to one side in a gesture of hopeful expectation. As if he was waiting for me to denounce the evidence I’d heard with my own two ears.
Do you really think I can forgive this? I roared silently. And Hunter took a step backwards as if struck. But he still made no move to leave.
We might have stood there frozen in our silent battle forever if Ginger hadn’t intervened. Her words cut through the emotions that hung like foul smoke in the hotel-room air. And as she spoke, I finally found myself able to take in one shuddering breath after another. “Now do you finally understand what I’ve been trying to tell you?” my pack mate demanded.
“Yes,” I replied simply, not taking my eyes off the uber-alpha. It was his strength that had attracted me to him in the first place, I decided. The uber-alpha was so absurdly powerful that I’d trusted my untrustworthy wolf and accepted the comfort of his protection. In the process, I’d closed my eyes to the truth, had believed Hunter’s lies, and had lost a pack mate in the process.
Not lost, my wolf whispered. We’ll find Lia.
I hoped so, but couldn’t really see how. Not when the uber-alpha before us was implicated in her kidnapping and had been privy to every stage of our recovery plan to date.
For a moment, I considered ordering my pack to pile on, to take Hunter down and force Lia’s location out of him. But we didn’t stand a chance against the uber-alpha’s root-beer dominance. He’d bark out a single command and we’d all wither away to nothing, starving to death within arm’s reach of a mini fridge chock full of caloric leftovers.
In fact, I realized now that I was well and truly stuck. The be
st I could hope for was to squash my wolf in an effort to make myself immune to Hunter’s incalculable dominance then mow the uber-alpha down with the sword that was still belted at my hip. The strategy wouldn’t help us find Lia, but it would prevent the traitor from actively working against us as we continued our efforts to free our pack’s youngest member.
No! My wolf rebelled, but it took only a blink of an eye to thrust her down into the dark recesses of my mind, deeper than I’d ever sent her before. Let the inner beast battle those monsters of loneliness, lack of belonging, and back-stabbing mates for a while. Maybe she’d do some good and my nightmares would become a little less frequent in the future.
Then I whipped my weapon out of its scabbard, glad that I’d pulled the so-called condom off the blade during the ride back to the hotel. And why didn’t Hunter simply take me hostage then when we were alone if he’s just trying to up his halfie count? I wondered. Why flirt with me and train me and fuck me senseless?
The issue was irrelevant. Lia had spoken as if Hunter was present in her prison cell, and I had to trust information from our pack’s youngest member over the yearnings of my own heart.
Still, with my back to the other shifters in the room, I mouthed the word “Go” at my opponent. Even now, I didn’t want to use the killing strokes he’d taught me in order to skewer a man who I’d caressed with such wild abandon mere hours earlier. Some traitorous part of my mind still wanted to believe that I was wrong in my re-analysis of my mate.
My mate. I closed my eyes for a split second to regather my composure. And when I pried my lids back up, Hunter’s clothes lay in a puddle on the carpeted floor.
But the uber-alpha himself was gone.
Chapter 20
Shifter Origins (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 1) Page 29