by T. S. Joyce
He cupped her full breast, and she arched for him, his sexy Vera.
Breath coming in short pants, she shoved his sweater upward and ran her palms down the curves of his chest and abs to the waist of his jeans.
“Vera,” he murmured as she dipped her fingertips inside and brushed his cock. He was so hard already, so hungry to be buried inside of her.
“Touch me,” she pleaded as she stood on her tiptoes and teased his lips with hers.
Tobias backed her against the wall and cupped her sex. So wet already. He was losing his mind. Bear was snarling, pushing. Wanted her so bad. She writhed against his palm and cried out his name when he slid two fingers inside her. Sensitive mate. She always came so easily for him.
“Oh. Oh!” she panted as she threw her head back and bucked against his hand. Her orgasm came quickly, gripping his fingers in sexy pulses, hard at first, and then softer as her pace slowed.
Desperate to feel the last of her aftershocks, Tobias unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down just far enough to unsheathe his dick. Then he spread her knees farther apart with his own and eased the head of his cock inside of her. So damned tight. Perfect. He gritted his teeth at how good she felt all wrapped around him. Wet. Warm. Ready. He couldn’t stop anymore. No going slow. He slammed into her over and over, the pressure in his balls growing with each stroke into her. He snarled and gripped the back of her hair as she grazed her teeth where she’d left her claiming mark. It had healed but still tingled anytime she got close to biting him again. Arm behind her back, he pulled her hard against him as he slid into her faster. She was yelling now, lost to the feeling like he was, crying out his name, over and over. Fuck yes, he loved when she called him. He thrust into her one last time and froze as he came. His hips jerked as he throbbed into her, mimicking her own orgasm as he emptied himself.
Breath ragged, they stayed locked like that, pressed to the wall, hands gripping each other like they never wanted to be parted. And he didn’t. If they could stay locked in this moment forever, he would gladly do it.
He could feel it—the bone-deep fatigue. The heaviness seeping through his limbs, hour by hour. Tonight had been perfect. Tonight had been torture.
“Change with me,” he ground out against her ear.
“Into my fox?” There was hesitation in her voice. They’d never been in their animal forms together, save the moments she’d attacked Clayton with him. They’d never enjoyed time together out in the woods, though. She hadn’t been brave enough, but Vera was different now. She was invincible, if only she saw in herself what he did.
When Vera eased back, she looked sad again, as if deep down she knew this would be goodbye.
“Okay, Tobias. We’ll Change together.”
He slid out of her and felt an immediate chill. She led him out of the shed and into the night. He didn’t get cold often, but Vera had been warm and alive against him, and the painful thought of his lonely, snowy winter den made him wish he could rip his own heart out so that he would feel nothing at all.
She lay down in a clearing, out of the safety of the evergreen canopy, exposed to the falling snow. And then he watched her body break apart and reshape into the fox that had changed everything. Only when she was safely sitting next to the trunk of a white-bark birch tree did he let his own beast out.
And when he towered high above her on all fours, he blasted a roar, his breath steaming in front of his muzzle, expelling the pain of the impending separation from the only person who’d ever really seen him.
Tonight, his fox shared her woods with him. She showed him every place she had attached to over the weeks. Every nook and cranny and frozen creek. And when their backs were covered in white, she turned them for home and Changed straight back, just like he knew she could. It was her fastest shift yet, and the last thing he needed to go into hibernation.
Vera and her fox were okay.
In the shed, she fell asleep against him, her back to the wood burning stove. And when her breathing turned deep and her muscles relaxed in sleep, he slipped out from under the blankets, dressed silently, and set the letter he’d written on the empty cot.
At the door, Tobias allowed himself to look back once. His mate was tucked on her side, knees drawn up, the curvature of her body beautiful under the thick blankets, and her face relaxed in her sleep for the first time in weeks. He closed the door gently, adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder, and strode away from the closest place to home he’d ever known.
Link’s gray and white wolf sat somberly near the cabin as if he’d been waiting. He trotted beside Tobias through the woods until he reached the edge of Wolfland.
And when Tobias continued on and couldn’t see the bright-eyed wolf behind him anymore, the haunting notes of Link’s howl sent him off into the night.
Chapter Eighteen
Something shook Tobias hard. With a soft warning growl, he relaxed again. A small prick of pain, like a bee sting, burned through his shoulder.
He let off another growl, but was helpless to wake up.
He could hear the murmur of voices now, slurred and too low to understand. Men’s voices. Humans. Shit.
He tried to pry his eyes open to defend himself but couldn’t muster the energy.
His shoulder had ignited as if someone had built a tiny fire on his fur. With a grunt of anger, he managed to move his paw. So fucking tired. How had they found him? He was deep in the den, hidden from the outside world. He’d bled three bruin bears to claim this spot. Stupid humans. He would bleed them, too, for waking him from hibernation.
Clamping his jaw against the pain, he blinked his eyes open.
“Oh, shit, he’s waking up.” Was that Dalton Dawson?
“Not fast enough.” That was definitely Chance Dawson.
“Should we give him another dose?” Dalton asked. “Vera said it might take two.”
“No,” another familiar voice murmured. Link? “Let him come out of it easy.”
Something hit Tobias in the chest, and the fragrant smell of cooked chicken hit his nostrils.
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey,” Dalton sang.
“Let’s go,” Link said. “He’ll wake up pissed.”
“I don’t want to die out here,” Chance murmured low.
“Me either,” Dalton admitted. “Tobias is a beast. I’ve never seen his bear before. Holy fuck, dude, he’s huge.” The voices faded, echoing off the cave walls. “It’s cold as dick out here.”
Just before the trio disappeared around a rocky corner, Chance shoved Dalton. “Man, dicks aren’t cold! That doesn’t even make any sense.”
Tobias couldn’t understand them anymore, though he could still hear the Dawsons arguing. The pain was too bright now, the snarl in his throat unavoidable. Something awful was happening to him. His eyes flew open as agony rippled up his spine. It was followed by a hundred tiny cracking sounds. His bones. His bones were breaking. The anguish became so bright, he roared, but as his body exploded with pain, the sound in his throat turned to a scream.
He landed on his hands and knees, gasping and confused. His human hands were splayed against the branches he’d gathered for the floor of his den. His bleary eyes focused on a whole cooked chicken on a paper plate, a bottled water, and three plastic containers. They held what looked like green beans, mashed potatoes, and stuffed mushrooms, like the ones he’d eaten with Vera on their last date. Vera.
He jerked his attention to the tiny dot of blood on his shoulder. It wasn’t April yet. Too cold still. Had she done it?
His stomach clenched in on itself, making him sway. In a rush, he ate every last bite down to the chicken bones. His body wasn’t working right as his fingers fumbled with the zipper of his backpack. He was shaking now, from cold or from whatever the medicine was doing to him. Where was his bear? He tried to reach the animal with his mind, but there was nothing there. Only him. Only the man. She’d done it. Hope bloomed in his chest as he struggled into his warm clothes. His body wasn’t even emac
iated yet. He’d probably lost fifteen pounds at the most.
He fell three times onto the unforgiving and jagged cave floor as he dragged his jerky body out of the cave, and when he stumbled out into the muted sunlight, he fell to his knees again, unable to push himself farther. His shins were bleeding and warming the legs of his jeans.
Dalton stared at him, head canted, and naturally dark eyes blazing silver. “You still smell like a bear.”
“Dumbass,” Chance muttered, his blond brows jacking up at his cousin. “He was a bear not more than half an hour ago. Of course he still smells like fur.”
Link pulled a sweater over his bare torso, then smiled at him with that lopsided half-crazy grin of his. “It’s good to see you human again.”
“Why are you naked?” Tobias slurred, his mouth feeling numb and his words coming out hoarse.
Chance picked up Tobias’s backpack and shouldered it. “See, you made Link swear not to bring Vera out here—she’s going to maim you, by the way—so he got around the swear by bringing us for backup instead. Only we had to search every damned den on Kodiak Island since you gave us zero clues to where you hibernate, so Link had to go wolf and sniff you out, since we don’t know your bear smell. Me and Dalton brought the food and supplies.” Chance gave Tobias a slow grin. “And medicine.”
“She really did it,” he said slowly, shocked that he was kneeling here in two feet of snow talking to a pack of snarky werewolves instead of sleeping inside the cave as a bear. “Why am I numb?”
“Vera said that’s normal. She calls it ‘the thaw.’ It’s a side effect, but it’ll wear off soon.”
“When is it? What month?”
“You’ve been asleep for six weeks,” Link said, pulling his own backpack onto his shoulders. “It’s mid-November.”
“Oh!” Dalton said, digging in his pocket. “I brought a love letter from your mate.”
Chance snorted, but Tobias didn’t get the joke.
Dalton unfolded a piece of thick paper and cleared his throat. “Dear stupid, twit-nugget, pigheaded, pickle-dick, marker-sniffin’, fart-faced—”
“I get it,” Tobias gritted out.
Dalton arched a dark eyebrow and continued in a dramatic reading voice. “You’re in big trouble for leaving me with a fucking goodbye note, and you are in double big trouble for telling Link I wasn’t allowed to wake you up. Come straight home so I can yell at you like I want. You should be frightened. Sincerely and angrily yours, Thistle.” Dalton folded the piece of paper and offered it to Tobias. “So you can keep it forever.”
“Yeah,” Chance said. “Frame that shit.”
With a grunt of effort, Tobias took the letter and clutched it in his shaking hand.
Link pursed his lips sympathetically. “She’s definitely going to bite you.”
Tobias tried to growl but couldn’t. At least he was getting a warm tingling feeling back in his body now. That was a good sign. He hoped.
“Hurry up and get moving, Silver,” Dalton said, nervously looking around. “Kodiak Island gives me the creeps.”
A werewolf outdoor guide was afraid of Kodiak Island? Tobias looked around, but it felt completely safe to him. Though, now that he thought about it, Kodiak really wasn’t the haven it once was. Not now that he couldn’t call on his bear to protect himself. He pushed upward and stood on locked, splayed legs, unstable as a baby horse.
Link ducked under his shoulder on one side, Dalton did the same on the other, and then they half-dragged him down the steep hill.
And somewhere around mile two, when Tobias could finally walk on his own, it hit him. He skidded to a stop in a deep snowdrift and spun in a slow circle.
“What’s wrong?” Link asked from up ahead.
“I haven’t seen winter since I was fifteen.”
Link trekked back to him, lifting his feet high to get over the snow. He gripped Tobias’s shoulder. “Silver, you got lucky with your mate. She’s worked night and day, and not just for you.”
“What do you mean?”
Link ducked his chin and gave him a loaded look. “Your brothers haven’t seen winter either.”
Tobias let off a shaky breath, then swallowed over and over to control the overwhelming emotion roiling through him. His eyes burned as Link shook his shoulder slowly.
Link’s gray eyes were rimmed with moisture as he dragged Tobias in for a rough hug. He clapped Tobias on the back hard enough to rattle his bones, then shoved him back to arm’s length. Link cleared his throat and wiped his cheek on the shoulder of his jacket. “Come on, Tobias. Let’s go wake up your brothers.”
Chapter Nineteen
It had been four damn days with no radio contact with Link and the Dawsons. There had been no call from a satellite phone to say they were still alive or let her know if they’d found Tobias.
On top of that, Mother Nature had dumped a massive snowfall that didn’t show any signs of letting up. Something was wrong. It had been too long without contact, and they should’ve been back by now.
Fox pushed a growl up her throat. Her animal was right. She was worrying about every worst case scenario. They had probably holed up somewhere safe and warm until this weather passed. She hoped. Still, she couldn’t pull her attention away from the front window of Link’s cabin for long.
Six weeks without her mate had been torture.
Link had allowed her to mourn over Tobias’s goodbye note for three days, and then he’d intervened. He’d dragged her ass into his cabin and got her living again. Got her cooking up the cure again. He slept nights out in the shed, and it wasn’t until about a week in that she realized he’d moved her into the big cabin while he’d moved out to the shed. Sweet, crazy wolf.
Her ears picked up a faint noise, like the buzzing of an insect. Vera bolted for the window but couldn’t see anything past ten feet away in the white-out weather conditions. The noise grew steadily louder until she could identify it. A snow machine!
With a gasp, she shoved her feet into her snow boots and yanked her heaviest jacket off the coat rack. Door thrown open, she bolted across the porch and down the stairs. A sob wrenched its way up her throat as she saw him through the snow, standing up on a snow machine so he could better see the trail.
Her shoulders sagged as she cried. It was him. Her Tobias was pulling the snow machine to a stop. He cut the engine and sprinted for her.
His body was hard as steel as it crashed against hers. When Tobias lifted her off her feet, Vera closed her eyes in overwhelming relief to be in his arms again.
“You did it, baby,” he said, voice thick. “Vera, you did it.”
“Where’s Link? Where are the Dawsons? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine, woman. The Dawsons are already back at the lodge and Link is a few minutes behind me. I just couldn’t wait to see you.” He cupped her cheek and thumbed away a tear. “Fuck, woman, it’s good to lay eyes on you.”
“In winter.”
Tobias’s lips collided with hers, and for the first time since she’d met him, there was no growl in his throat. There was no scent of fur or feeling of dominance. That was the con to the medicine—she refused to call it a cure anymore. She would miss his bear, and Tobias would struggle to be just a man in the winters. It would be hard on both of them, and they would feel incomplete until spring when he could stop taking the monthly injections and let his bear out again. But this right here—holding him and basking in his smile instead of mourning his hibernation—this was the pro. This made all of the work, frustration, sleepless nights, and worry worth it.
She bit his bottom lip gently, then gave him tiny smacking kisses all over his face as he chuckled deep in his throat. Then suddenly remembering how he’d left her, she reared back and punched him in the chest. He didn’t budge or wince. “You monster! You left me without a goodbye.”
“I wrote a note,” he said, ducking another pathetic blow.
She leveled him with a pissed-off look. “You should never do that again. Your goodbye n
ote made me want to set all your belongings on fire.”
“Okay. I won’t do it ever again.”
“Swear!”
“I swear. Stop swingin’ at me, woman.” He gripped her little fist of fury in his oversize hand and looked her square in the eyes. “I swear.”
A forgiving smile cracked her face. “Lena and Elyse will be so happy. I made enough for all three of you Silver boys to last until April.”
Link pulled his snow machine next to Tobias’s and hopped off. “Are we telling them?” he asked in an excited voice.
“I don’t know,” Tobias drawled, settling Vera on her feet. “Maybe I should test it for a few weeks to see if it’ll hold.”
“Aw, come on, man!” Link said.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
Without hesitation, Tobias said, “With my life.”
“I made sure to get it perfect before I sent those wolves out there after you, McBeefcake. It’ll hold.”
Tobias nodded slowly, his gaze locked on hers. “Let’s get Elyse and Lena on the radio. I won’t take you out to the homestead until this weather clears, but we can tell them what’s happening and get them preparing food for their mates. Ian and Jenner will wake up hungry.”
Inside Link’s cabin, Tobias radioed Elyse and told her to go to Lena’s house where he would call and talk to them at the same time. Elyse sounded panicked and asked over and over again why Tobias was awake.
“I’m not telling you anything until you’re with Lena.”
“Tobias, I’m running there right now. Call her! I’m going now!”
The radio went silent, and Tobias shot Vera a wide-eyed glance. “This will change everything. All the pain of separation…”
“I know.”
Link was pacing, scrubbing his hand down his face. “How long?”
“Lena’s cabin is a mile from Elyse’s.”
“The weather’s shitty!” Link said, panicked.