by Lauren Esker
"Yeah, that's not going to raise questions," Julie sighed. "Well, they were probably raising the roof trying to find us anyway, since we vanished in the middle of the night, leaving a mess in the kitchen. At least we have 'til tomorrow to figure out what to tell them."
"About that." Terry cleared his throat. "Look, I ... I have your back, Jules. But we need to talk about whatever is going on with Damon's family right now. All of us."
Even with his head down and his eyes mostly shut, Damon could sense that Terry was looking at him.
Julie stroked his arm. "You don't have to talk about it tonight. Terry—"
"No. He's ... right." Damon had to force out the admission as he sat up, but it was worth it for the look of surprise on Terry's face. "You guys helped me. I appreciate it. And you're right—you're involved in this now, because I got you involved. I need to tell you what happened with my pack."
He sketched it out for them in as few words as possible: the attack on his father, the accusations, the way his cousins had jumped him.
"But why would they do it?" Julie asked, holding his hand tightly.
"To take over the pack." Damon stopped, and stared off into the distance, as if he could see through the wall into the night. Another piece had just fallen into place. He wished it hadn't.
"Damon?" Terry said cautiously, and then to Julie, "Is going into trances a normal werewolf thing?"
"I don't know. I've only been mated to one for about six hours." She raised their joined hands to her lips, and kissed the back of Damon's. "Damon, what's the matter?"
"The Renners were there," Damon said slowly. "It wasn't just Brad and Barry hunting me in the woods. It was the Renner pack. I don't know for certain if the scent in my father's den was the Renner pack alpha or one of his minions, but I know the alpha was there, and I bet the stranger who attacked my father was one of them."
"What does that mean?" Julie asked quietly.
"I don't know." He was so tired. At least the aspirin had kicked in, so his head and everything else no longer throbbed quite so intensely. "My father plans to marry my sister Vanessa off to the Renner pack alpha."
"Does she want to?"
Damon shook his head vehemently. "No. She hates the idea. If anything happens to Dad ..." What would happen to the betrothal? Well, if there's a conspiracy between Cain Renner and the cousins to take over our pack, it's going to happen whether she agrees to it or not. "I'm worried about my sister. Cain Renner wanted her for his mate, and if he takes over as our pack alpha, she won't get any say in it at all. At least with my father in charge, there was a chance he'd come to his senses. He ran the pack with an iron fist, but he cares about Vanessa. I don't think Renner cares about anyone."
"I can't imagine anything's going to happen tonight," Julie said pragmatically. "And even if it does, we're all too tired to figure out what to do about it. Come on, let's get some sleep, and we can talk it over in the morning."
Worry for Vanessa and his mother, along with a hundred scenarios about what might be happening to them, spun around and around in Damon's head. But .... "You're right," he admitted. "We can't do anything tonight. We need time to regroup."
Terry pushed up off the foot of the bed. "I guess that's my cue to leave. The couch is calling my name."
"Terry," Damon said as he turned to leave. "Look, I—I meant what I said earlier. I know we've never gotten along, and ... you didn't have to help me. I owe you one."
Terry shook his head, and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. "No, you don't. If anything, I owe you, for defending me and Julie against your pack when we were kids."
"Oh," Damon said, surprised. He'd almost ... well, not forgotten, but he'd never really thought about it that way. At the time, it just seemed like doing what was right.
"Besides," Terry added. "This stupid feud has gone on long enough. If even one of our illustrious ancestors had bothered to say, 'Hey, yeah, I know we're sheep and you're wolves, but it's not the 16th century anymore, and we're not living in a peasant village, either' ... I guess we'd all have been a lot better off. You and Julie wouldn't have had to sneak around, for one thing."
"I never knew you felt that way," Julie told her brother.
"I'm not sure if I knew I felt that way 'til tonight. But, yeah. This feud is stupid and it's time to end it."
Damon couldn't stop a slightly hysterical laugh. "And meanwhile, my pack is being taken over by exactly the kind of werewolf fundamentalists who are never in a million years going to listen to reason about that."
Terry started to speak, then interrupted himself with a jaw-cracking yawn.
"Tomorrow," Julie reminded them both. She leaned down to pull the blankets up over herself and Damon.
"Oh. The quilt." Damon, who had started to lie down, sat up again. "It's going to stain. Cold water will help the blood soak out. Does your grandmother have stain remover?"
"I'll take care of it," Terry said. He picked up the bundle of soiled sheets and tucked them under his arm. The door closed softly behind him.
"Alone at last," Julie sighed.
She started to pull up the blankets, but Damon rolled over and took her in his arms.
"Be careful," she whispered, with a glance at the door. "You're all bandaged up. I don't want to hurt you."
"Hurting isn't what I have in mind."
He captured her soft, full lips with his own. At that contact, the full force of the mate bond came rushing back. Suddenly the thrill of the kiss was doubled and redoubled, her pleasure flooding into him, as his must be flowing back to her.
Julie broke the kiss to look up into his eyes. "Are you really feeling up to it?" she whispered.
"They say it's a natural painkiller."
"We'll have to be quiet."
"I can be quiet," he murmured, pushing back her damp hair to nibble at the fine shell of her ear.
Julie slid her hands under his pajama top. Her warm palms skirted carefully around his bruises, running over his flat abdomen and caressing his chest.
Beneath the flannel nightgown, her nipples pressed out. Damon was seized with sudden urgency to see her body—all of her. In the hayloft, they'd only partly undressed. He'd never seen that glorious body in its entirety, the beautiful body that was now bonded to his.
"I want to see you," he whispered.
Julie sat up in bed. She cast a nervous glance at the door, then hopped off the bed, padded over, and pushed a chair in front of it. "No locks," she whispered, padding quickly back.
Standing barefoot beside the bed, she reached for the nightgown's buttons—in keeping with the old-fashioned style, it buttoned up the front. "Damon, I'm not some kind of willowy supermodel. You know that, right? I'm a little heavy. You might not like what you see."
"I think that ship has sailed," he whispered back. "I know I'll love what I see. You're my mate. There is no more beautiful woman in all the world."
Julie blushed to the roots of her hair. She undid the buttons, giving him tantalizing peeks of her breasts, and then peeled it off. Damon's breath caught when he realized she wasn't wearing anything under it. The nightgown pooled around her feet.
And Damon knew he'd been right. From her heart-shaped, slightly nervous face, down the bold swell of her breasts to the nest of dark gold curls between her legs, and on down her luscious thighs to her small, bare feet ... she was the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen.
He struggled up to his knees, trying not to jar his side.
"Damon, be careful," Julie whispered, reaching out to steady him.
"I won't do anything that hurts too much."
He kissed her bare breasts and belly; she shivered, her face slackening in ecstasy. In these early hours of the mate bond, her skin was still hyper-sensitive to her mate's touch. Damon took full advantage of that, flicking his tongue over her tender, pale skin and delighting in the way her hips bucked involuntarily. She had to stifle a moan.
"Save a little for the main course," he whispered. "I haven't even gotten th
ere yet."
With his ribs the way they were, and Julie standing beside the bed, he couldn't bend down far enough to easily reach what he wanted most. He gave her a gentle tug and she climbed up onto the bed—carefully, trying not to creak the old springs too much. She had to duck her head a little and plant her hand against the low beams of the ceiling. Her other hand twined in Damon's hair as he bent his head between her legs.
She tasted as good as she smelled. Damon teased her with his tongue, and shivered with the echoes of her surges of pleasure. She spread her legs wider, bracing her toes against the bed. He licked her warm folds and plunged his tongue into her, tasting her as deeply as he could.
"Damon," she gasped. "Damon, I—I'm going to—"
"Hold on just a minute longer, love," Damon murmured. He licked up to her clit again, and slid a finger inside her. She was dripping wet and ready. Her body stiffened, thighs tensing. Another finger joined the first, slipping in and out as he swirled his tongue against her clit.
Julie groaned low in her throat and threw her head back. Damon could feel her pleasure building, feeding back into him, setting up a deep thrumming in his groin that had him rock-hard in the borrowed pajama bottoms. He could tell exactly how slow or fast she wanted it, exactly how much pressure with his tongue-tip against her sensitive nub.
When she came, clenching around his fingers, her orgasm washed through him too. Damon fought down his own building climax, instead focusing on the heat sweeping through her and the rhythmic clenching of her inner walls against his fingers.
When the shudders finally stopped, he pulled out his fingers and grinned up at her. "Good?" he whispered.
"Amazing." She knelt down to kiss him, running her tongue over his lips, tasting herself on him. "But you haven't had yours yet."
"Can you go again?"
For answer, she began undoing the buttons on his pajama top. Carefully, not jostling his side, she stripped it away, then worked off his pajama bottoms over his narrow hips. His cock was achingly hard, and when she wrapped her fingers around it, he gasped aloud. Normally the sides of the shaft weren't much more sensitive than the skin anywhere else on his body; all the delicate nerve endings were concentrated at the tip. But with the mate bond open full-force between them, her touch set his whole body afire.
"I don't know if I can hold it once I'm inside you," he murmured into her ear.
Julie's grin was the wicked grin of a satisfied woman—who planned to be even more satisfied soon. "You better. I want to find out what a second one feels like."
"You've never come twice?"
She shook her head.
Challenge accepted.
He braced his good foot against the bedframe and eased into her slowly. She was unbelievably wet and open, welcoming him inside. He nearly came right there from the look on her face—eyes fluttering shut, head thrown back. The bedsprings creaked softly as he pushed deep into her. I'm not going to be able to move. But then he realized that he didn't have to. In fact, the feeling surging between them was so intense he wasn't sure either of them could have handled deep, hard strokes right now.
Instead, he moved slowly inside her, small shallow strokes caressing her inner walls. Ecstasy flowed from her back to him, ripples upon ripples, until he couldn't hold back any longer. And she could feel him rising toward climax, so she lifted her hips in a sudden sharp jerk—taking them both over the edge in a flood of white heat.
He came down slowly, easily, and found himself lying entwined with Julie. They were both lax, limp, sated.
"I think I need another shower now," she murmured against his cheek, and giggled.
"I think I need sleep."
"Yeah. Me too."
A thought occurred to his sluggish brain. "Okay, that time we should have used condoms. Probably. You're on the pill, you said?"
Julie nodded, her hair tickling his bare skin. "Although it looks like I'm in the process of skipping one right now, since they're back at Mom and Dad's place."
"Is that bad?"
"I dunno. Don't really care. Too sleepy."
She peeled herself reluctantly away from him to turn out the light. There were some rustlings, and then a flannel-clad Julie crawled into bed with him.
"Awwwww," he said.
"I know, but do you really want Grandma or my brother to walk in on us naked?"
"It might be worth it, if it's Terry."
Julie snorted, and smacked him lightly in the face with the pajama top.
As the euphoria drained out of him, he was starting to feel all his weakness and pain coming back. But the presence of his mate was a more effective painkiller than Grandma MacReary's aspirin.
9. Julie
Julie woke early, and for awhile she lay snuggled lazy and comfortable against Damon's warmth. Every part of her, body and soul, gloried in his proximity.
If this is mate bonding, I like it.
But eventually she sat up. For a little while she gazed down at Damon, watching him sleep. He twitched slightly in the grip of dreams, his long dark lashes fluttering against his cheek.
"Rest," she whispered, touching the corner of his mouth. He relaxed under her hand.
Julie got out of bed very carefully so as not to disturb him. She opened and closed the bedroom door with equal care, and padded into the living room. Blankets were neatly folded on the couch. Following the sound of soft conversation, she found Terry and Grandma in the kitchen, drinking coffee.
There was an unexpected third person with them: Ava.
All the Capshaws were short, but most of them were built along sturdy, practical lines. Little sister Ava, in contrast, was tiny as a pixie. Even her hair, instead of the thick dark-blond curls of her siblings, was a lighter blond and cut in a feathered style that enhanced its softness.
She looked like the sort of young woman who would have favored expensive, stylish clothes, but instead she liked oversized T-shirts and faded jeans. She also liked to sit on chairs with her feet tucked up, making herself into a ball. She was doing it now, balancing her coffee cup on her knees.
"Close your mouth, Julie, a bug will fly in," Ava said. She reached for a piece of toast from the plate in the middle of the table.
"I'm just impressed by how fast the family grapevine works." Julie poured herself a cup of coffee. The rest of the kitchen was vintage farmhouse, from the massive antique cookstove to the cream-colored pitcher and basin set beside the sink, but instead of the beat-up tin coffeepot one might expect, Grandma MacReary had a top-of-the-line brushed-steel coffeemaker with its own bean grinder. Grandma did love her gourmet coffee.
"I'd love to tell you I used my mad psychic skillz, but it's a total coincidence. I needed to come over and use Grandma's welding shed."
Ava was an aspiring sculptor. She lived in a tiny apartment and worked as a waitress at Lou's Diner downtown, so all of her enormous sculptural creations were housed and built at the farms of various relatives.
"They've just been filling me in on everything I missed." Ava spoke around the piece of toast as she bit into it. "You had a busy night, big sister."
"No kidding."
"So." Ava leaned forward eagerly. "Spill the beans. That's the same Wolfe boy that saved us from the bullies that one time, right? What's he like?"
"Can't I at least get dressed first?" Julie glanced down at her borrowed nightgown. "Uh ... Grandma, this is a little awkward, but I think I'm going to have to borrow something to wear."
"Your things are in the dryer, dear. I washed them last night. Do you want eggs?"
"Um, yes. Scrambled, please."
With that, Julie escaped to the laundry room, a converted shed off the back of Grandma's farmhouse. Damon's clothing had been washed as well, but his shirt and jeans were in rags—savaged by his cousins, then cut apart in the process of tending his injuries. He would need to borrow clothes or get some of his own things to wear.
Which gave her a perfect excuse for something she wanted to do anyway.
She s
lipped back into the kitchen, where a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon was waiting for her. Grandma hated to let a guest go away hungry.
"I don't understand why none of you have called the police yet," Ava was saying. Julie appeared to have come in on the tail end of an argument.
"And tell them what?" Terry asked. "My sister's boyfriend got bit by a wolf? How is that going to help?"
"Didn't someone say he got shot? That's kind of illegal, last I checked."
"I don't think the police will be able to help," Julie put in through a mouthful of bacon. "Trying to explain the whole situation will just raise more questions than it answers."
"Excuse you, from what everybody else is saying, there's two cases of attempted murder here. I can't believe no one wants to do anything about it."
"It's more that we don't want to go down as accessories ourselves," Terry said, tipping his chair backward until a glare from Grandma made him meekly return all four legs to the floor. "Look, the authorities frown on people hiding gunshot victims and not taking them to hospitals."
Ava appealed to a higher authority. "Grandma, help me talk some sense into them."
"I'm rather inclined to agree with Ava," Grandma said, forking more bacon onto Terry's plate. "I don't hold with calling the police for every little squabble, but this seems to be the kind of situation they're more equipped to deal with than we are."
"But if we get the police involved," Julie protested, "his cousins will strike back by accusing Damon of trying to kill his father. He'd go to prison. I won't let that happen."
"I can see it now," Terry sighed. "Julie Capshaw, fugitive from justice. You two Bonnie-and-Clyding your way across the country—"
Julie kicked him under the table. "Which is not going to happen as long as someone doesn't call the cops. Ava, did you drive here?"
"No, I walked eight miles from town." Ava seemed to be feeling sulky over having her suggestion rejected. "Yes, I drove. Why?"
"Because I want the van." Julie gulped down the last of her breakfast and held out her hand to Terry, palm up. "Keys?"