“What? And give up all this?” Gareth stared at her like she was crazy. “One day, Beth I’ll be the Alpha of this territory.”
“It was only a joke,” she replied lamely. Her heart, already well abused by her indecision and her love for this wolf, shriveled up and cracked in half. “Of course you don’t want to give that up,” she smiled fiercely. “It’s getting late, we should head back.”
“So am I allowed to stay the night?” he asked with a wink.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes, and it was what she wanted most in the world, but now that she knew where she stood in the grand scheme of things, she revised her opinion. “No, I don’t think so, Gareth.” She looked on in horrified fascination as his face fell – no more horizontal mambo for you, buddy, she thought – and replied in an even tone, “it just wouldn’t look right if anyone saw us. After all, there’s Donovan to think about.” And now that she really did think about Donovan, she was ashamed. She felt like an alley cat, slinking home after a rendezvous with the local tom. Oh what a fool she’d been.
“Oh yes,” he replied, almost spitting the words. “We can’t forget Donovan, can we?”
“I’m really not in the mood for more of the same from you tonight, Gareth, so I think we should just call it a night.” She jerked her tee shirt over her head, squeezing her eyes tight to forestall the tears that were threatening.
“Why not?” he demanded, acid in his tone. His face had completely closed up shop and his eyes were dead. “I’d have thought you would have enjoyed more of the same. You were pretty hot for me earlier.”
“I meant this, Gareth. This...fighting. More of the same.” She turned her back to him to hide her shamefaced expression. How could she be so stupid? He sold her the sun, the moon and the stars, and all she ended up with was an ache in her heart. She’d thought he cared about her. But he wouldn’t even give up his Alpha position for her. An Alpha position he didn’t even have, yet!
“Well let’s get you back home, then, Beth. We wouldn’t want wind of this to reach Donovan, would we?” Gareth grabbed her roughly by the arm and marched her back toward her cottage. He briefly stopped to swoop up her trainers and her pants – not that they were any use now; they were all torn – and continued to frog march her as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her.
Three days, she reminded herself. He’ll be rid of me in three days.
Her poor heart would never recover from this. She just hoped that Donovan wouldn’t suspect what they’d gotten up to. And that Gareth would keep his mouth shut. Leaving this territory, and this pack, seemed the best future she could hope for now. With or without Donovan – she had to leave.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Speak of the devil!” Gareth grumbled when they got within hearing distance of her cottage.
Donovan, usually so calm and unruffled, sat on her doorstep in a rumpled heap, hair tumbling around his shoulders in disarray from being roughly finger-combed, eyes wary and sad. “Gareth,” he nodded.
“I’ll leave her in your capable hands, shall I?” he spat in reply, thrusting Beth forward so forcefully she fell on her knees before Donovan, his face a mask of shock. It was then that Beth remembered she still wore no pants. She was on her knees, naked from the waist down in front of one of her mates, thrown there – discarded there – by the one who’d taken her virginity so gently and lovingly an hour beforehand.
Her face crumpled and she scrambled for the door. Donovan got there before her, gently wrapping his jacket around her midriff to give her some modesty. Bit late, she thought bitterly.
“This is no way to treat your mate,” he snarled at Gareth, eyes already changing to wolf.
“She’s not my mate,” Gareth replied just as nasty. “She’s yours. Take her.”
“With pleasure,” came the tart reply, as he opened her door.
“Not as much pleasure as I just took her with, I bet,” Gareth grated, jaw set in stone. His eyes wavered between them and then he stomped away, leaving Beth to deal with the fall out.
“So,” Donovan began, handing Beth a soothing cup of scalding tea. “You and Gareth...?”
The tears came from nowhere and everywhere. She sobbed as she nodded. “Yes. We – I did. I don’t know how to explain –”
“Hush now, no need to explain.” He cupped her shoulders and turned her to face him. “What’s done is done.” Dark hair spilled around his shoulders like a curtain, as he shook his head. “Usually around now I’d be admitting defeat and slinking away into the night.” He seemed to see right into her heart. “But that didn’t seem like parting was such sweet sorrow, to me, my mate. It’s over, isn’t it?”
“Y–yes,” she nodded brokenly, snarls and snags of hair falling onto her face, sticking to the tear tracks. She scrubbed ineffectually at her face with the backs of her hands before clearing her throat. “Yes, it’s irrevocably and completely over.”
“Alright then.” He pulled her into the circle of his muscular arms, rubbing her back in soothing circles while she hiccuped and sniffed. Not very attractive, but she was past caring at this stage. “I’m leaving for Tall Grass territory tomorrow evening.”
This made Beth cry all the harder. One bad decision, and look what it cost her! If someone had told her a month ago that she’d have lost not one, but two mates in one night, she’d have laughed them out of the pack. But here she was, still wearing Donovan’s jacket to preserve what little dignity she had left, at her own kitchen table, about to lose mate number two.
“You are free to stay here, if you wish,” he was saying now. “But I’d really prefer if you came with me.” He sat back on his heels and looked her dead in the eye. “I know you’ll never love me like you love him, but I think we can make each other happy. And I, Beth, love you.”
Shocked right out of her tears, she gazed at him in awe. “Y–you still want me? Even though I’m an alley cat?”
“An alley...never mind. Yes, of course I still want you. You’re my mate, Beth, and nothing will change that.” He kissed her tenderly on the lips, tears and all. “Although I think you might want to knock being an alley cat on the head, alright?”
She laughed, feeling her nose run, and sniffed. “Alright.” Then she looked at him, really looked at him. And she could see what it cost him to stay with her. “You don’t hate me?”
“Hate is such a strong word,” he replied softly. “I don’t hate you. But I do hate what you done out there tonight.” He gazed at her in wonder. “But by God your eyes do look wonderful shining like that.”
“It’s the tears,” she replied, but Donovan just shook his head and made to leave. “Don’t go.” He halted with his hand on the knob. “Please, Donovan. Don’t go.”
Turning to face her once more, he offered her a small, tight smile, and said, “I’ll stay, but only on the couch, if that’s alright.”
“Of course. I’ll get you some blankets.”
~~~~
“If you’re not sure, Beth, you don’t need to make a decision right away,” Melinda halted her as she was about to leave the Alpha’s office. “You still have three days.”
“I know, but I’m sure.” And she was. Leaving here, and soon, was in her best interests. How could she face Gareth again after last night? How could she force Donovan to confront him again after what she’d already put him through? She wasn’t heartless, even if Gareth was. She couldn’t do that to Donovan. To her mate.
“Well at least let us put together a farewell feast, Beth.” The Alpha female was not to be moved on this point, and Marcus agreed. “I think a farewell shindig is in order,” he told her. “Melinda is completely right in that respect. We won’t take no for an answer.”
Beth shook her head and told them that Donovan wanted to leave right away. “What’s the hurry?” Marcus demanded. “Surely one more night won’t make a big difference since his stay was arranged until three days hence. I’ll speak to him,” he announced.
And so it was that they came to be surrou
nded by the Loam Floor pack that evening, toasting to the new couple’s continued happiness, and the hope of a brighter future with their ‘in-laws’ in Tall Grass territory. “Sometimes,” her mate whispered discreetly in her ear. “I wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off marrying into this pack,” he grinned. “Everyone is so friendly. Well,” he amended, glaring at the dark shape of a wolf sloping through the clearing, “almost everyone.”
“Not always,” she replied just as quietly. She tapped her temple. “Pack ties,” she winked. If only he knew that right now, one of the still un-mated males who had presented himself as a candidate at her ceremony was wondering how good she was in bed. Then ‘friendly’ might not be so appealing.
It always rankled that she couldn’t control the mental connection. She couldn’t dig around for the information she deemed useful, for instance, and instead got random snippets of the most trivial gossip and deep secrets of a sort she wouldn’t admit to knowing.
...damn female...better off now she’s leaving...
It didn’t take a genius to figure out whose thoughts those were. The wolf had curled up, nose to tail, somewhere in the clearing and was even now waiting with bated breath for her to get on her way.
Shrugging, she accepted a skewer of pork and wild mushrooms with a drizzle of olive oil, and almost moaned as the rich earthy taste of the mushrooms mixed with the succulent flavor of the meat. Now this, she could eat every night.
Donovan nudged her toward the end of the night and she turned lazily in the circle of his protective embrace. “Mmm?”
“Beth...” he cleared his throat. “Do you want to, maybe...?” He hooked his head in the direction of the woods.
She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think now is the best time, Donovan.” Cheeky!
He grinned. “Not that I wouldn’t love to take a little sojourn into the woods with you, but, I was rather thinking that he’s been slinking around out there most of the night waiting for a chance to speak to you before you leave.”
She had no need to ask who ‘he’ was. She’d been getting bits and pieces from him all night. None of it making much sense to her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s a worse idea to leave things unsaid,” he suggested calmly. “I’d prefer my new mate not to have a hulking ex roaming around out there with a chip on his shoulder.”
“Good point,” she replied reluctantly. She made to rise, and Donovan put a restraining hand on her thigh.
“If he tries anything, or asks you to walk further away than shouting distance...” His black look said it all. And that was a lot.
“I won’t go any further than the tree line, and if he tries anything he’ll be going home soprano,” she smiled wickedly.
“That’s my girl!”
~~~~
“I gather you’ve been wanting to speak to me,” she said into the darkness. “But I can’t very well speak to you in wolf-form. Come out, and shimmer.” Laying a hand on her hip, she waited.
“Why don’t you just take your mate and leave?” he asked, striding out from a thicket, his face – the most beautiful face she’d ever seen – like thunder, and his eyes sparking fury.
“Well if that’s the way you’re going to be – I will!” Beth turned back toward the festivities and in her haste, didn’t hear the twig snap right behind her.
“I’ll miss you, Little Wolf,” he growled into her ear, his breath tickling, and his voice once again pulling things low in her belly. “And I’ll damn sure miss that smell of yours.”
She could feel him growing against her body where he was pressed, the long, hard length of him trapped against her lower back. She almost moaned, and caught herself just in time. “Gareth, I–”
“And the way you say my name...I’m gonna miss that, too.” His strong hands came to rest on her waist.
“Let go of me, now,” she demanded. “You lost your right to touch me when you–”
“Treated you like shit, I know,” he replied. All of a sudden he whirled her around, went to his knees and hugged her midriff. “I’m so sorry, Beth. So sorry.”
“So you keep saying, Gareth. It’s all you’ve seemed to be able to say to me, from day one.”
“I know. I can’t apologize enough for the rough treatment I gave you. Were you...sore...afterward?”
“Oh you mean was I hurt?” Beth stepped back, breaking his embrace, leaving him a shadow amongst shadows again. “Yes, Gareth. I was hurt. It hurt a lot. And I’m sure it will hurt for a while yet. But I have Donovan now to help me with that.”
“Donovan!” he spat. “He wouldn’t know how to make you feel like I did.”
“That’s the point,” she replied sadly. “He’ll never drag me through the woods half naked and deposit me into the arms of another man with such distaste.” She stepped out of his reach when he made a move toward her. “And he’ll never, ever hurt me.”
“Ah Beth,” he whispered raggedly. “What have you done to me?”
“What have I done to you?!” she cried, before remembering to keep things calm, or else Donovan would hurdle over and then there’d be a fight. “Never mind, Gareth. It’s over, and the better man won.”
She never even seen him move, he was that fast. One minute he’d been kneeling brokenly before her, the next his hands clamped down on either side of her face, and he slanted his lips over hers, gently, so gently.
She reacted. Of course she reacted. He was the mate of her heart, ass or not, and he was kissing her. She kissed him back with all the ferocity she wished she could kiss Donovan with, her hands fisting in his hair, her breaths sucked desperately through her nose. Backing her up hastily, he pressed her against a tree and drew her leg up around his waist. In her blind lust, she never even thought to object. He tore his mouth from hers and blazed a path of fire down her neck, inhaling the scent of her arousal.
It was when he reached for the snap on her jeans that she came back to herself and realized what she was doing, and with whom. Twisting out of his grasp, she speared him with a cold stare. “Don’t you ever try that again, Gareth Loam Floor, or I’ll send you home a eunuch, do you understand me?”
The use of his full name seemed to waken him from whatever fog of longing he was in and his face closed tight. “Yes, Elisabeth Tall Grass, I understand.”
He smirked, and she knew whatever it was he was going to say next was not going to be polite. “But the better man didn’t win. Not by a long shot. Not when you’re so wet I can smell it from here. Not when I know you haven’t been with him.” She started to object but he interrupted her viciously. “There is no scent marker, Beth. The scent marker you have is mine. Mine. And I hope it’s driving him nuts.”
“God damn it,” she rasped. “And God damn you!”
He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “I’ll damn sure miss seeing those shining eyes of yours.”
Stumbling back to the gathering, Beth heaved herself down beside Donovan and whispered to him that she was getting pretty tired, and her chat with Gareth had put her in a bad mood, and could they just go to sleep, so that the next time they opened their eyes, they’d be leaving?
“Of course, my love. Anything for my mate.” He grinned his boyish grin and offered her his hand up. “This way for escapism.”
Sometimes the best thing to do, when you don’t know what to do, is do nothing. So Beth did nothing about the confrontation with Gareth. She didn’t tell Donovan what had happened, although she could tell he was bursting with the need to know what his mate had gotten up to. “You’re eyes are so bright,” he whispered sadly, on the way back to her cottage.
“That’s because you brighten my night,” she told him sweetly.
He laughed, and they continued on their way, but she resolved to check the damn mirror as soon as they got in. She was sick of all this talk about her eyes. Claiming an unnatural need to use the bathroom, Beth skipped ahead and flat out ran through the cottage’s little living area. The bathroom beyond her sparse bedro
om had little more than a shaving mirror, but it was sufficient enough to see what she needed to see. Her eyes, like two giant diamonds, were actually glistening. They reminded her of the cat’s eyes she sometimes saw on the roads the humans used for driving on. They were shinning alright. And they only ever seemed to shine for Gareth.
Could it be a residual effect from all that lunar power? It was then that she realized she’d never actually finished her mating ceremony. She’d never sparred with the Alpha female. Although now that she was truly mated, in both senses of the word – although still two different wolves – she supposed it didn’t matter. Just one more thing that went awry lately, she shrugged.
“Beth?”
“Uh huh?”
“Come to bed.”
She froze. It was too soon after...it was just too soon. “Um, Donovan, would you believe that I’m just dirt tired and really, really wanted to sleep?”
“No, my mate, I wouldn’t.” He appeared in the doorway, naked from the waist up, his body a veritable master piece for the eyes to devour. “But I can be patient.” He kissed the tip of her nose, and she wrapped her arms around him, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t push her on this. Not tonight, in any case. She relaxed. “Let’s go to bed,” he whispered.
“Okay,” she replied, already feeling sleepy and safe and hardly thinking of Gareth at all. Only when her head hit the pillow, and the darkness surrounded her did she think of him.
Chocolate eyes in the darkness and a cool breeze on her skin.
“Good night, Gareth,” she whispered in her sleepy state.
She never realized Donovan heard her, and frowned unhappily. “Good night, Little Wolf,” he replied in his best Gareth imitation, and watched her features relax in a peaceful expression of sleep. She snuggled into him, running her fingers across his midriff, and he closed his eyes as he held her, though sleep was a long time coming.
~~~~
“How long until we reach your Den House?” Beth asked for what seemed like the millionth time. Excitement had been building all morning and by the time the sun had reached its zenith, she was fit to burst.
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 168