by Lydia Dare
Dear God, he needed.
A rabbit skittered by in the bushes. Simon didn't take his eyes from Westfield Hall. She was in there. She was asleep in his bed. She was snug and safe under the counterpane. She was safe from him.
That thought brought unending pain. She shouldn't need to be safe from him. If he wasn't such a beast, he could be with her. He could be with her and love her always. Love her in every way.
Simon's ears perked up when he heard a door slam at Westfield Hall. He stood up on all four feet. His limbs quivered with the desire to run to her. Instead, he turned away, ready to head back into the dense forest.
Ready to run from her.
Then his keen hearing picked up the sound of running feet as they crunched against the pea-gravel path in the garden. Someone was outside. He sniffed the air. Damn! The wind blew in the wrong direction to pick up a scent.
Simon closed his eyes and willed the wind to change direction. Despite his close proximity to nature, he had no ability to force the wind to do his bidding. Had he been human, he would have laughed.
But he wasn't. And never would be. Not truly. Sure, he could pretend to be human most of the time. But he was all beast.
Simon heard footfalls pounding against the soft forest floor. Faster and faster they ran. An animal? He sniffed again. Still no scent. He growled at the injustice of it all.
The wind shifted.
He smelled it.
He smelled her.
Lily.
No.
The footsteps grew louder and louder as she ran. He would evade her. He would go farther into the forest. He would run from her. He turned to do just that.
But then she winced. Simon stood and looked down. He could see her there, stopped at the bottom of the hill. She halted and pulled a thorn from her foot. Maybe that would slow her down.
Not his Lily. She ran even faster than before. She was nearly upon him when he turned to run away.
He heard her voice.
***
A soft rain began to fall. Lily paid it no heed and simply brushed the wet locks of hair from in front of her eyes. She had to find her wolf.
Lily knew it was him the moment she saw him. His black hair shone under the light of the moon. The streak of white that usually graced his temple now shot across one ear and down his back.
"Simon!" she called. He was facing away from her. He was moving in the wrong direction. But she would run forever to catch him. She barely felt the pain in her feet, which were bruised and battered after her barefoot run through the forest.
He didn't turn when she called to him. He ran in the other direction. He moved into the dark until she was unable to tell wolf from shadow.
No!
"Simon," she cried, bending over, the pain of his absence nearly more than she could bear. Lily fell to her hands and knees as tears clouded her vision.
"Don't leave me!" she screamed, the strength of which burned her throat.
A man stepped out of the shadows.
Simon stood completely naked and completely unashamed under the light of the full moon.
"Why are you here, Lily?" he snarled.
She drew in a deep breath, the relief of seeing him nearly palpable.
"Because I need you," she said.
He turned to walk back into the forest. "Go home," he ordered.
"Because I want you!" she cried, louder than before.
He turned and looked at her.
"Because I love you!" she finished.
Lily sat back on her heels and freed her nightrail from around her legs, where she knelt on the ground. Quickly, she tugged it over her head and tossed it to the ground beside her. She sat naked in front of him. She held up her hands, palms facing the sky. "Take me," she cried.
Forty-Six
Simon fought the beast. He fought it with every bit of his body, mind, and soul.
He came to her and kneeled in front of her, his hands sliding into the hair at her temples.
"Why don't you want me?" she sobbed. But gone was the time that he could have gently wiped the tear from her cheek. Instead, he brutally pulled at her hair, tipping her head so that she was forced to look him in the eye.
"You think I don't want you?" he snarled. How could she possibly think that? He wanted her in the worst way. He wanted to pin her beneath him. He wanted to thrust into her until he could spill himself inside her. He wanted to take her. He wanted it more than he wanted his next breath.
Despite the brutal pressure he applied to her scalp with his hands tangled in her hair, she turned her head and pressed her face into his palm.
He couldn't allow her to show gentleness to him. The beast didn't deserve it. The beast wanted nothing more than to hurt her. Why would she turn to him and seek comfort?
Lily reached up to touch Simon's face, and he flinched.
"Don't touch me," he growled.
Yet she persisted. Her hand cupped his cheek. Her thumb brushed across his bottom lip. And Simon gave up control. He allowed the beast to take over.
The pain of the transformation was miniscule compared to the pain in his heart. For he knew that when he showed her his true self, when he came to her in Lycan form, she would turn from him in disgust.
Simon lifted his face to the moon and basked in the light of the night. He dropped to his hands and knees before her and let her watch as his hands became paws with long, black claws, so sharp they dug into the soft, wet earth. Simon watched her face as she watched his. He knew his nose would elongate and his ears would move to the top of his head and become pointy. He'd seen his brothers and others of their kind change. It was a quick process. Yet tonight, it seemed to happen so slowly.
When he was fully Lycan, he stood before her, his face level with hers. He wanted to shout, "Go home! Go to safety!" But now all he could do was whimper. So, he did.
Then the little fool reached a hand toward him. She reached those tiny little fingers out as though she wanted to touch him. Hadn't her mother ever taught her not to touch wild animals?
Simon bared his teeth and growled.
Lily's hand stilled, hanging in the air in mid-reach. He growled again. There, he thought. That is what I am. I am fur and snout and teeth and bite. I am Lycan. I am not human.
Simon closed his eyes and sat very still. He hoped that, when he opened them, she would be long gone. She would come to her senses and leave him. But even more than that, he closed his eyes because he didn't want to see the revulsion on her face he knew would be there. He knew she wouldn't be able to accept him as he was.
Then she touched him. His eyes flew open, and he bared his teeth. He snarled. He would bite her if she wasn't careful.
"There, now," she whispered as a tear slipped from her eye and rode a path down her cheek. "Growl all you want." Then a laugh broke from her throat. She said very softly, "When Emma and I were young, we had these cats in the stables. No one could touch them. They were feral. They hissed and scratched and bit. But I never gave up."
Her hands threaded into the hair at his neck. She stroked him. She touched him. "I'll never give up on you, either, Simon," she said quietly. "Because I love you."
Simon realized that he'd never told her he loved her. All the times he'd pleasured her. All the times he'd held her. He'd never told her. He suddenly felt a burning desire to do so.
Simon gritted his teeth and forced the physical characteristics of the beast to recede. He fought until he kneeled before her again in his human form.
Simon took her face in his human hands, his palms dirty from the mud under his claws, hands that were unable to be gentle. Hands that wanted to bite cruelly into her flesh. She cried out. He instinctively gentled his touch.
Before tonight, he'd never been able to do that. He'd never been able to control the beast.
"Did you hear me? I said I love you." She repeated the words, her eyes searching his.
"I love you
too much
," he snarled, well aware that his lips
lifted from his teeth. But unable to force the beast away completely.
"Love me
enough
," she simply said and held out her arms to him.
Simon kneeled before her on shaky legs. His body wanted to be in Lycan form. His mind wanted to stay in human form. His heart wanted to love Lily.
His heart won.
Simon took her face in his hands. "I cannot be gentle," he growled.
"I know," she said. She took his hand in hers and brought it to the curls at the juncture of her thighs. He slid his fingers into her hot, wet body. "I give myself to you, my wolf, because I know you will keep me safe," she said.
He needed no more urging. She cried out when he picked her up and spun her in his arms. He faced her away from him, her bottom cradled in the saddle of his hips. He pressed against her, ready to take her.
Simon wrapped one arm around Lily's waist and used the other to press her shoulders toward the ground. She extended her arms to hold herself up and looked over her shoulder at him.
Her auburn hair clung to her back like wet ropes. He brushed it to the side, exposing the arch of her spine. The soft rain that fell left droplets of water on her skin.
Control. He needed control.
Simon allowed himself the pleasure of licking a path
up her spine, his tongue lapping at the drops of water until he reached her neck.
"I am yours," she whispered. "Know that it's me who takes you, Simon." She repeated the words he'd said to her their first time together.
"No one else, Lily," he growled before thrusting inside her. Her heat enveloped him as he pushed further. She gasped with undisguised pleasure.
The beast hovered just below the surface. The beast wanted to dominate her. Simon raked her back with his fingernails, hard enough to leave shallow red scratches down her tender white skin. He looked down in horror. What had he done?
"Again," she panted. "Do it again," she begged as she backed up against him and rocked forward. The heat of her slid down his length. She took him farther than ever before.
Simon's nails raked a new path down her back as he slammed into her.
"More," she said. The beast reared and fought. Simon bent low, pressing his chest to her back. One of his hands slipped into her hair and wound a knot around his fist. He tugged until her head was forced to turn. He breathed against her ear.
"It's
me
who takes
you
," he said, just before his teeth punctured the tender skin of her shoulder.
She erupted around him. He stopped to cry out at the sensation of her clamping around his length.
He wailed.
He howled.
He followed her.
***
Lily sank to the ground under Simon's weight. He pressed her into the cold, soft earth. He slipped from her body within seconds, and she immediately felt the loss.
His hands brushed the hair away from her face. "Are you all right?"
Too weak to do more than nod, she slowly inclined her head. "Better," she murmured. And she was. She was better than ever before. She was Simon's wife. She was his partner. She was his Lycan mate.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked, his voice quavering slightly.
"Not a bit," she assured him.
"I'm sorry I marked you." He reached to touch the small wound on her shoulder.
"I'm not." She smiled.
Simon rolled her over and looked into her eyes. "You're sure you're all right?"
"I'm not fragile, Simon." She cupped his face in her hand.
Simon slid an arm beneath her knees and one under her shoulders and hoisted her against him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding tightly to him. Would he disappear if she let him go? Would he walk into the shadows and leave her?
"I'll not leave you again," he said, as though he read her mind. "If you'll have me, all of me, I'll share my Lycan life with you."
"Do I have to wait a whole month to be able to do that again?" she asked, unable to withhold the laughter that erupted at the look on his face.
Simon carried her through the garden, into the house, up the stairs, and into their bedroom, both of them completely naked. He placed her gently on the bed.
"What's this?" she asked, as she saw a note on her pillow, with a tin of salve and a small towel. "For the shoulder," she read aloud. "Love, Alice."
"That's my mother for you," Simon sighed. "I love her, but she really should mind her own matters."
"Why did you fight it, Simon?" She had to know.
"I was afraid."
"That I wouldn't love you?"
"That I would never love myself." He shrugged then joined her on the bed.
"I love you enough for both of us." She kissed his jaw.
"A Lycan cannot be embraced by another until he embraces the wildness within himself." He repeated the words at the front of his father's book.
"Who wrote that?"
"Daniel." He twirled a lock of her hair absently around his finger.
"Daniel?"
Simon just nodded and swallowed hard. "He wrote it when he realized what he'd done, how he'd ruined his chance for a happy life with Emma."
"What do you mean?"
"He never embraced it. He never fully accepted that he was a Lycan. He dabbled at it, much like I did. He ran to hide every time the moon was full.
"By the time he took Emma, there was too much anger, too much despair. Then he hated himself. Every time she looked at him, she cringed. I didn't want that. I didn't want you to be disgusted by me."
"I'm not."
"And that, my dear, is the only thing that saved you." He chuckled.
"Oh, so the big, bad wolf would have hurt me, would he?" She laughed as she sat up and pushed him onto his back. Then straddled his hips.
"This big, bad wolf has officially been tamed," Simon said as he raised his hands above his head and relaxed.
"I actually liked my beastly husband." She pretended to pout. "He has a certain wolfish charm." He sat up quickly, captured her in a tight embrace, and reversed their positions, so that he was over her.
He growled, "Then you, love, may have all of this beast you can stand."
Lily adjusted for him as he settled between her thighs. "I would accept nothing less."
Epilogue
Thoroughly amused, Simon watched Lily rush around her bedchamber in a frenzy. She was looking behind tables and under the mattress, completely unaware of his presence in the doorway.
She blew a stray auburn curl from her face and then took a deep sigh as she planted her hands on her hips.
"You do know we have servants to clean the house," he said, making her jump at least a foot in the air.
"Oh!" Lily spun around to face him. "Don't do that. You nearly scared me to death."
Simon couldn't help but chuckle. "Love, you've married a wolf. You don't scare all that easily." A light blush stained her cheeks, and Simon was certain he'd never tire of the sight. "What are you looking for?"
Lily flopped down on her bed and frowned. "My father's pocket watch. I know it arrived with the rest of my things from Maberley Hall, but I can't find it anywhere."
Simon crossed the floor and stood before her. "Your father's pocket watch?"
She nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek.
Simon took her hands in his and pulled her up from the bed. "This doesn't have anything to do with Oliver leaving, does it?"
The coach was waiting to take the three of them to Harrow, and Oliver was below stairs pacing the parlor, as he was anxious to leave.
Lily frowned at him. "I'd wanted to give it to him before we left. It's the only thing my father had of value, and I thought it would make a good goingaway gift. Something for him to remember me by."
Simon touched her cheek. "Ah, love, there's no boy more devoted to his mother than Oliver is to you. He doesn't need a pocket watch to remember you."
She sniffed back another tear. "Do
you think he's ready for this? We could wait another year," she added hopefully.
Simon kissed her forehead. "You can't stop him from growing up any easier than I can stop the moon's cycles. It's all part of life. And he'll be fine. He's anxious to see Leo Schofield again."
At this Lily brightened. "He'll keep an eye on Oliver?"