Following the Wolf (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf BBW Erotic Romance)

by Hart, Melissa F.

  “That was the last, then,” Siobhan said with satisfaction. “Never thought you would get him.”

  “He was fine,” Riona said, shaking out her arm. “I wasn’t sure he would come either.”

  The two women walked up the stairs into the bustling kitchen area of Caer Dunclough. The ancient fortress had stood for hundreds of years, and as far as anyone could understand, it had always been the home of the werewolves of Dunclough. As Riona grabbed an apple, she was greeted by grins and smiles from the people who she had come to think of as a second family.

  “Have you come to a decision yet of whether you will stay or go?” Siobhan asked bluntly. Riona winced, but Siobhan persisted. “You are not doing yourself or him any favors by holding him away and not saying yes or no. He's like a ghost, haunting your steps.”

  Riona didn't know what to think. The last month had been terrifying and confusing, but at the heart of it, she had never felt better or more at peace in her life. The first night she had come to Caer Dunclough, however, she had realized that she needed more time to think than what she had had on the road.

  “But why?” asked Rordan, confused. “I know how I feel, you know how you feel, there is nothing simpler.”

  Though an insidious part of her was convinced that he was right, she still couldn't bring herself to give up so much of herself. “Leave me be,” she had said finally. “You wanted me here, and I am here. I will do what I can for your people, but now, you must leave me time to think.”

  Hurt and anger washed across the wolf king's face, and he had given her what she wanted. After he had brought her to the beautiful room in the fortress that was meant to be hers, they were civil when they passed, but there was still pain there. Riona knew that she still longed for him, but until she was certain what was in her heart, she could not allow him close.

  Dunclough was a thriving community of werewolves, perhaps the largest remaining on the continent. Every single wolf of adult age was trained to fight, but they all had to have other useful skills as well. Some beat weapons from iron, while others tended the tall black goats that they moved with care from glen to glen. Others hunted the woods, watched the children or even dedicated themselves to the history of their clan. Despite her lack of shifter powers, Riona fit into the clan like a puzzle piece.

  Her role was an honored one, she had learned. Some wolves became lost in their wild selves, unable to return to their human form. The witchfolk once lived alongside the werewolves, healing them and calling them back to themselves when the need arose. In recent years, the witchfolk had dwindled and traveled to the city. Their children were born without being taught their skills, or, as in Riona's case, abandoned to spare them a life of stigma and pain among outsiders who could not hope to understand.

  Among the wolves, Riona felt happier and more whole than she ever had. She fit in, she was brought to the very center of things, and one by one, she found the handful of wolves who were stuck as wolves, and she turned them back to their human form. When she revealed that she was an infirmary assistant at the nunnery where she was raised, she was encouraged to begin tending the wounds of the community, who had not had a trained healer in some time.

  Sitting in the main dining hall, Riona ate her apple and listened as Siobhan traded jibes with Ferric. She wondered idly if the two were in love, but the thought of love pinched her heart, making her remember the handful of nights she and Rordan had spent together before coming to Dunclough. She had never felt anything as perfect as being in his arms, but still, there was a nagging doubt in the back of her mind.

  Her thoughts were dark, so she was completely unprepared when there came a brisk tug at her dress. She nearly kicked the person who had pulled, and when she looked under the table, she was confronted with a pair of eyes as golden as honey.

  “You smell sad,” Ciara said solemnly. “You ought not be sad, Ri'a.”

  Riona managed to find a smile for the little girl, who was so small she could have passed for three, though she was at least a year older than that. She was an orphan, like Riona herself, but instead of being farmed out to the church or a workhouse, she had been adopted into Rordan's line. Riona still didn't know how the complicated family ties of the wolves worked, but she understood that as far as anyone was concerned, the little dark-haired girl was considered Rordan's sister, and anyone who disagreed would quickly be taught better.

  “I'm not sad, Ciara,” she said softly, handing the little girl her apple to finish. “What a silly thing to say.”

  “You are,” insisted the child. “Your heart is heavy. Everyone says so.”

  Riona looked up suddenly to find Ferric, Angus and Siobhan all looking very interested in anything not in Riona's direction.

  “Hmm, well, one of the first things you need to understand, little whelp, is that gossip is a terrible thing, and that people who gossip are little cleverer than chickens.”

  “Chickens?”

  “Yes, stupid, stupid chickens who don't know how to keep their mouths shut.”

  Siobhan, Ferric, and Angus all realized that they had business elsewhere, and that at least cleared the bench for Ciara to come sit properly. She was an adorable little child, and as she nibbled on Riona's discarded apple, she watched Riona with eyes that were surely too wise for someone so young.

  “You're thinking about my brother,” she said. “You're thinking that you do not want him.”

  “Your brother is a fine man, and any wolf would be lucky to have him,” Riona said.

  Ciara scowled. “But you're not with him now. What if he goes and finds someone else while you are taking so long?”

  Riona thought about all of the werewolf women who cast covetous eyes on Rordan, women of all shapes. Some of them were willowy beauties, others were lean and strong as Siobhan, and a few of them were even as short and voluptuous as Riona herself, and they all had made it very clear that the wolf king was welcome in their beds.

  She found that she was clenching her fists, and with an effort, she relaxed them.

  “He's a fine man, and they are right to look,” she said as evenly as she could. “He can have them or not, it makes no difference to me.”

  Ciara suddenly glanced over Riona's shoulder, and when Riona turned, her heart sank. Rordan stood behind her, and she had no doubt that his sharp ears had caught at least part of their conversation.

  Instead of his usual smirk, his face was as dark as a storm cloud. “Come on, Ciara, I told you I would take you hunting today.”

  The small child smiled and scampered over to where Rordan stood, and though he lifted her up easily in his arms, his eyes never left Riona's.

  “So glad to know that you don't mind whose bed I sleep in,” he said softly. “I am glad I stand so high in your regard.”

  He turned and strode away before she could summon him back, and then it was too late. Her hands dropped to her lap, and for a moment, despair overwhelmed her. She knew where her heart wanted her to go, but some part of her held back.

  Finally, she rose and headed toward the infirmary, where she knew there would be at least one sympathetic ear.

  ***

  Conleth was once the leader of the King's Dogs, and he had lost his place when he and Rordan fought. He had been on the losing end, with his throat torn out, but at Riona's insistence, he had been brought to Caer Dunclough to heal. His wolf's strength was making him heal fast, but he still tired easily. When she came to the infirmary, he was asleep, so she busied herself with her herbs.

  She was just putting away some fresh-ground willow bark when he stirred.

  “Riona. It's fine to see you today.”

  “Of course,” she said, turning with a smile. “How're you feeling today?”

  “Strong enough to venture out,” he suggested.

  She laughed. “When the moon turns full, remember? That's when we agreed that you would be well enough to venture around.”

  “I agreed to no such thing,” he grumbled, but he was placated when she came to si
t with him.

  He was a big man, blond where Rordan was dark, and there was a sense of command around him that no amount of bandages could take away. Now he looked at her with inquisitive eyes, and she began to squirm a little.

  “What is it?” she asked nervously. “Do I have crumbs on my face?”

  “You seem sad,” he said.

  “Everyone says so,” she cried impatiently. “I wish everyone would mind their own business!”

  “A hard thing to do when your sorrow is so clear,” he replied. “None of us can understand it. I remembered how you and Rordan were, but then you came here, and nothing.”

  “It doesn't feel right,” she protested. “I cannot explain it better than that. I should not need to.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Is this about your abbess?”

  Riona flinched. Rordan had abducted her from the abbey where she spent her entire life, and in the course of it, the good Abbess Beni had been struck to the ground. Sometimes, Riona was haunted by the vision of the old woman sprawled on the stairs, and she could still taste some of the rage and the despair from it.

  Conleth nodded, careful of the still-healing wound around his throat. “It is a terrible thing,” he agreed, “but can you not see beyond it?”

  “I... I don't know,” she admitted. “He was so... so terrible. It makes me see the wolf in him, and that frightens me.”

  Conleth looked sad, cutting his eyes away from her. “Do we all frighten you then?” he asked softly. “Do you see us as merely beasts in men's clothing?”

  “No!” she exclaimed. She thought of all of them, of Conleth's nobility, of Siobhan's sardonic strength, of Ferric's humor and Angus's loyalty, and she could never see them as beasts. Rordan was no beast either, but once again, the abbess's body appeared before her eyes.

  “You are people,” Riona said miserably. “I know this. I don't know what is in my heart.”

  Conleth diplomatically changed the subject, and they spoke of less fraught things. When she left his side, she felt better. Her mood was lightened, and she felt less conflicted.

  That lasted until she came around a corner and saw a young werewolf woman she did not know reach up on her tiptoes to plant a lingering kiss on Rordan's cheek. A spike of hot rage flowed through her, and she stomped up to them, not caring if she was being unfair.

  “Back from teaching Ciara to hunt?” she asked, her voice barbed

  She had eyes only for Rordan. The girl, who was short and round, Riona noted, stammered something and scuttled away, but Rordan only raised a black eyebrow at her.

  “I am,” he said. “We went out to the meadow and I showed her how to catch field mice for sport. I understand you were with Conleth, however, and I assume that must have been more diverting by far.”

  She knew that he had likely caught the other man's scent on her, and she drew herself up to her full height to glare. “When I tend Conleth, he is my friend and my patient. There is never a reason for me to kiss him like that girl was kissing you.”

  “A kiss?” asked Rordan, deliberately dense. “Is that what you think it was?”

  Riona was so angry she thought steam might blow out her ears.

  “What would you call it?” she demanded. “Was she licking a cut for you, or checking to see if you have fleas?”

  Rordan seemed completely undaunted by her rage. He smiled, slouching back on one leg and crossing his arms in front of his broad chest. “I call it a little bit of nothing,” he teased.

  She started to respond, but he continued.

  “A kiss is something between two people who desire each other,” he said, his voice low. “It is the first touch of two bodies who crave each other, and it opens them to each other.”

  He took a step closer to her, and she had to look up at him. He was a big man, and when he did this, he loomed over her.

  “In a kiss, a real one, our tongues come together, and I can taste you so fully. It lets me enter you, and it lets you enter me, Riona. It's not a little peck on the cheek in thanks for finding a new patch of wild garlic. It's the start of something that leaves both of us panting and aching and still wanting each other so badly that it would drive us insane.”

  Riona swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. This close to him, her heart started to beat faster, and she could feel herself ache in exactly the way he meant.

  “Rordan,” she whispered, her voice little more than a whisper. “Please.”

  With nothing more than that, his mouth swooped down on hers, and her arms went around his waist, dragging him close to her. It had been so, so long that she felt as if she was starved for him. Her body hungered for his touch, his mouth, even his smell, and now that she had him again, she could not imagine letting him go.

  “Please, please,” she said, and he groaned willingly.

  “Anything, any way you like,” he promised. “Only let us move out of the damned hallway.”

  The first door he opened led to a spare room that held a single dusty bed. It was narrow, and too short for a man of Rordan's size to stretch out fully, but when Rordan shot the bolt on the door, it could have been a den of bears, and Riona would not have cared.

  The room was only lit by a single round window, and in the dim light, they came together as if they had been apart for years and years. There was nothing that could stand against their passion, and in their hurry, they tore at each other's clothes before they stood naked in front of each other. Riona had a nervous moment, thinking of the woman in the hall, but Rordan simply embraced her again, bearing her to the bed and lavishing her face with kisses.

  “I've never had you in a bed,” he said softly. “Oh love, I've dreamed of this for weeks...”

  She needed him so badly, and now she knew that it would always be him, no matter what lay between them. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, desperate to have him even closer to her, and when he laid a dark love bite on her neck, she only moaned for more. She reached down between them to take his cock in hand, but he stopped her.

  “Rordan?”

  “You've denied me too long, love,” he growled playfully. “I'm not going to let you off so easily...”

  That was all the warning she got before her wrists were braced above her head, and Rordan lashed them in place by cinching a belt around them and the iron bar of the headboard. She twisted hard, and she knew that if she struggled very much at all, she could likely twist free. Then she realized with a warm sense of completion that she did not wish to, and she turned toward him.

  “Well, what are you going to do with me now?” she asked, her voice soft and husky, and he smiled like the very devil.

  “Whatever I like,” he retorted, and he brought his wet clever mouth to the curve of her breasts. She moaned as he sucked on her nipples and ran his hands all over her body. He did not stop with her breasts, but he caressed her everywhere, from her belly, to her hips and thighs, all the way down to her feet.

  She stifled a giggle when he ran his fingers over her tender instep, and when he did it again, she kicked playfully at him. He firmed his touch, running the pads of his fingers firmly over the sole of her foot, and she sighed as he released a tension that she hadn't even known was there. He continued rubbing and massaging her feet and her calves until she was in a haze of pleasure, and then she whimpered when he bent to kiss the soft skin of her knee. Encouraged by her groan, he swept his mouth up her inner thigh, and willingly, she parted her legs for him, letting him know in no uncertain terms where she wanted to be touched.

  Instead of kissing her as intimately as he had before, he only traced his fingers up and down her slit, parting the dark hair there. She might have blushed when she realized that he was looking at her so intimately, but instead, it roused her in a way that was quite new.

  “You're beautiful here,” he murmured. “So pink and hot...”

  He pressed the tip of one finger between her lips, just the tip, and she groaned, pushing her hips up wantingly.

  “More,” she whimpered,
moving restlessly on the bed, but he only laughed.

  “Soon enough, dear,” Rordan promised. “You made me wait so long, surely you can wait as well?”

  She whimpered, willing to do whatever he liked if only he would touch her more, and her meekness was rewarded when he slid his finger inside her. She was already so wet that his finger slid in easily, and in another moment, he brought his other hand to stroke that little pearl of flesh at the top of the slit that she had come to know so well. As he thrust two fingers inside her with agonizing slowness and his other fingers plucked sweetly at her most sensitive flesh, she felt the first tremors of her climax come over her. The speed of it, and her sheer desire for it was overwhelming, but just as she was sure that she would fall straight over the edge, his movements shifted. He did this again and again, nearly bringing her to one peak after another, and she strained against the belt, thrust her hips up hard against his touch, begged him for more.

  “Damn you,” she moaned as he paused yet again. “Rordan, you must let me, please, please Rordan...”

  He laughed, and in the hoarseness of it, she could tell that their play had affected him as strongly as it had her.

  “Tell me you want me,” he murmured, pressing a third finger inside her. She groaned because of how good it felt, but it was far from enough.

  “Rordan...”

  “Tell me how you I make you feel,” he said, and she nodded frantically.

  “Tell me you want me, love,” he said, and this time, she could hear a pleading note in his voice that she had never heard before.

  “I do, I do want you,” she wailed. “I want you so much, please, Rordan, please, please, I love you, please...”

  With a barely restrained growl of victory, he rose up over her, and with no more warning than that, he thrust into her hard. She was well-prepared and wet, but there was still a moment of discomfort when he pressed inside her so hard. Then it was gone and all she wanted was for him to do it again and again. She never wanted him to stop, and as he moved over her, his eyes shut and his body taut, she knew that he would always be a part of her.