Running her hand along the bedsheets Mina made an approving sound.
"I have never seen one so large." She said with a wry grin.
Chuckling at her double entendre, Cade started to pull back the blankets.
He was stopped by a had on them.
Looking up in question at the action he was met by Mina's pleading gaze.
"I ask that you do not try anything my Cade, I am unsure of my will power when it comes to you at the moment, and do not want to disrespect my ancestors by taking what I have not earned." She finished the request with a glance at her prize should Cade pass tomorrow's test.
"I will give you tonight Mina, but I will have what is mine tomorrow so rest well and drink plenty of water, you will need to be well hydrated for what I have planned," he said with a solemn expression on his face that belayed the promise in his eyes.
As they both got under the covers fully clothed to remove some of the temptation they both felt, he found he couldn't sleep.
As he stayed awake staring up into the moonlight streaming down through the skylight of the room he contemplated his next steps to the sound of Minas even breaths.
Would he take what Mina was offering, not just her body which he planned on claiming as his tomorrow, but the offer of life with love in this new world, a life he had lost when Tony had died.
Tony and he had these conversations often enough he didn't feel guilty about taking another wife, the real question was if he was ready to love again.
Thoughts of a new life with another love of his life ran through his mind.
Amusement filled those thoughts of a white picket fence and Mina cooking for their enormous family as sleep overtook him at last.
Sexual healing
Cade awoke rested and refreshed, ready to meet the new day.
Mina had called him her mate, he wasn't sure how he felt about being called that, it was just on the edge of being too primal for him.
The look in Mina's eyes as she called him that though was another matter, the term would grow on him if that was how she looked at him while she said it.
He was more than willing to go through with the battle to earn his Mina, if not for the feelings that had grown between them, then for the love she offered.
Cade felt a spike of sadness and shame, he believed he could truly love the fierce woman but why should she have to fix him?
Should he let her fill the void left by Tony's death, it would be an uphill battle for her to be sure.
Would Mina be ok with living in the shadow of his first wife?
"She is a grown woman. If she thought she wouldn't be able to take what you are offering then she wouldn't have given you the choice in the first place, stupid." Cade chastised himself for attempting to sabotage his own happiness.
"One day at a time dummy, now we have a beautiful woman to beat in single combat. Then we will give her the night of her life, sound good Cade? Yup sounds good Cade. Alright, go team."
Opening his eyes he turned to see his mate staring at him intently, impatience written on her beautiful face.
"Finally you wake, I have been up watching you for far too long." As she finished the statement her face changed from impatience to languid bliss.
"Today you will earn me my Cade and I you, we will walk to the beach and you will fight me." Her blissful expression changed again this time to one of fierce challenge.
"I will not take less than your best, my kits will have a strong father, one who will keep them safe, secure, and loved," Mina said as her expression changed to a playful but sensuous grin.
"Do not disappoint me my Cade, I have waited for this day since I was a cub, and I will not take a mate who doesn't fulfill that little cub's dreams." She finished her speech with a cheek to cheek rub with Cade.
"I won't my Mina." Was all Cade could muster as a response, the gravity of what he was undertaking, the seemingly instinctual need of his mate reinforced by a lifetime of dreaming what this moment would be like.
Cade promised to himself that he wasn't going to let that little girl down.
Removing the covers from them both she got out of the bed.
He watched as she trailed her clawed fingers along the sheet-covered mattress with a look of promise in her eyes she left the room her luscious hips swaying in counterpoint to her long black tail.
Cade shook his head to clear the lustful thoughts racing through it at the woman's exit.
"Time to get in the game Cade then you can get into her," he said as he admonished himself with a grin.
Reliving his bladder in the bathroom with his morning wood slowly wilting just incensed him even more.
Stepping into the kitchen he was graced with the vision of Mina finishing her meal of gator meat and hard crackers from the bandit's supplies.
Cade felt his heart swell with emotion as he caught his soon to be wife/mate in such a mundane activity.
"Hurry my Cade, eat so we can begin," Mina said as she saw him walk into the kitchen.
"Yes ma'am," he said with a grin as he plucked a crumb of cracker from Mina's furred cheek before making a plate for himself.
Finishing his own quick meal he gestured to the door meeting Mina's gaze.
Grinning at him she stood and exited their home.
Listening to the crunching gravel beneath her feet as she walked away Cade shook his whole body.
"Get your mind in the game Cade, work hard now play hard later," he said as the butterflies that were swarming in his stomach grew three sizes.
Finishing the statement with a grim look at the soon to be battleground he closed the door to their home behind him as he went to fight for his mate.
Walking up to where Mina stood glancing around, Cade cleared his throat to get her attention.
Turning to look at him Mina smiled.
"This area will work for what we need, first the rules," Mina said airily.
Cade barked out a laugh "rules?"
Holding up one finger Mina continued.
"Yes, there are rules to this my Cade, first we fight barehanded allowing only our natural abilities."
Mina completed this comment by extending the claw on her upraised finger.
"It seems I am woefully under matched in that category,buuuut," he said with a grin as he hardened and lengthened his fingernails.
A quick swipe of his hand against his forearm proving the nails nowhere near as deadly as his mate's claws.
Mina grinned at his attempt at humor, her grin changed to a smirk as Cade cut off the useless nail extensions with a thought.
"What? Just making a little fun. Please continue."
Mina's smirk stayed in place though as she wrapped up her explanation.
"Second and last we will fight until one of us is unconscious, or yields, this is not a fight to kill but to subdue."
Mina finished her statement by backing up ten feet and adopting a ready stance.
Face impassive and focused she spoke to Cade "I am ready my mate, do not disappoint me."
Adopting a less polished stance of his own Cade replied "didn't plan on it my mate, be ready for tonight I will have you begging for my kits before I am done with you."
Finishing his declaration he nodded to her, his signal clear.
Mina disappeared immediately, thrown off guard Cade looked around.
The crunch of gravel was his only warning as five sharp claws cut through his jerkin and his flesh to the metal covered bones beneath.
Grunting in pain he was too slow with his thrown arm, as he looked down to see Mina disappear again as she dodged his untrained swing.
Jumping in the direction she had dogged in he swung a haymaker that created a small gust of wind but met nothing but air.
Hearing her chuckle to this right he swung and missed again.
"You flail around like an untrained cub Cade, where is the bluster from before, my kits aren't coming anytime soon with a mate that swings his claws like he is trying to kill flys."
With Min
a's jab fresh in his mind, Cade felt the blood that been flowing from his injured side slow then stop.
Their game of cat and lobotomized rat with a broken leg and glaucoma, continued for a few minutes before he groaned.
He stopped trying to chase his nimble mate and use the abilities he had completely forgotten about as he swung at Mina's after-image like a damn caveman.
Cade rolled his eyes as he tapped into one of his abilities.
Expanding his power he felt for the signature of his mate, familiar with it from the past day of traveling.
Seizing her roughly in his mental grasp, he watched her appear with a smile on her face.
"Took you long enough to figure it out, I had expected you to do this immediately," she said, not even a little out of breath.
"We are going to have to get you some training so our kits don't beat you within an inch of your life before they turn one."
Cade grinned at the trapped Mina's verbal jabs, more than willing to train with the skilled woman.
"I will be glad to study under you my pretty kitty, just have a fight to win first."
Extending his arm and opening his hand he brought the strangely compliant woman into his grip.
"What shall you do now my mate," he asked with a smirk.
"Oh, just this," she replied with a smirk of her own.
Cades expression changed to confusion just before he was hit with what felt like a cinder block inside his head.
Dazed by the mental blow he heard a roar in his mindscape, eyes widened as he realized what his grinning mate was doing.
Dropping into his mindscape he saw two of her giant guardians tearing into a suburban home.
Rushing over he grasped one of the giant felines by the scruff of its neck and tossed it out onto the manicured lawn.
He received a few scratches for his trouble but they healed faster than normal, almost as soon as he received them.
He repeated the process with the other intruder, after a few repetitions of this Cade managed to corral the cats to the front lawn.
Laughing internally at a joke about herding cats he tried to think of a way to remove the giant cats from his head.
Thinking back to the mental shield he ran into inside Kaz's mind Cade attempted to replicate the structure.
Fixing an image of a dome of power in his head, he was amazed as the structure took shape.
In what he assumed was the subconscious need for the invaders to be removed, Cade watched the cats being drug by an invisible force and stared as the dome opened around the growling and roaring cats as they passed through his newly erected mental barrier.
After the cats had been ejected through the dome Cade flinched as they jumped at the barrier and attacked it with such ferocity that he knew it wouldn't last more than a few seconds.
He waited for the hastily built barrier to fail spectacularly and braced himself to renew their game of keep away from his house.
Long seconds then minutes passed as the attack continued with no weakening of the dome that now protected Cade's mindscape.
Realizing he didn't need to be here, that the dome was more than up to doing its job of keeping the cats out, he exited his mind.
An excited expression that slowly changed to frustration on his mate's face greeted him.
"That was pretty wild, but unfortunately didn't work my pretty kitty, what else do you have up your sleeve or do you yield MY mate."
Finishing the question with a squeeze of his hand on Mina's throat, his eyes opened wide when she went crazy in his grip, growling and roaring at him.
As Mina thrashed, clawed, and bit every inch of Cade she could get to, he received thrice as many cuts in the few tens of seconds than the entirety of the mental battle with the guardian cats.
As she shredded his clothes and skin, sending blood and scraps of cloth flying he found he was turned on by the display of ferocity from his mate.
His lust for his wild mate was tempered somewhat when a petite foot struck a glancing blow to the head of his erect exposed dick.
Unluckily for him, it had grown out from a long rip in his shredded gator skin pants.
Hissing through his teeth at the spike of pain in his gut, he tightened his grip on his wildcat of a mate's throat.
The growls that she had been spitting his way stopped suddenly with a squeak.
Hoping the fight was wrung out of her he cautiously loosened his grip from choke a bitch out to something that wouldn't be unexpected in the bedroom.
Cade brought her lips to his for a quick kiss, once he was sure he wasn't going to lose any more skin or blood, he looked her in the eyes and smiled at his mate.
"You have lost my Mina, you are mine all you have to do is yield, or we can continue the foreplay until you pass out, and when you wake I can take what I have earned."
Finishing the declaration of his win he lowered his new mate to the ground and loosened his grip, as he stared into her eyes with a raised eyebrow.
Rolling her eyes Mina stripped her tight leather leggings from her wide hips and let them fall to the ground.
Following the path of discarded clothing to the ground, Cades attention was drawn to the apex of Mina's thick thighs where her sex was in full view, covered with a light bush of short black hair, dewey with her arousal.
"Is that enough of an answer for you my mate, now claim what is yours." Mina finished the statement with a purr.
Mina gripped his arm before wrapping her legs around his midsection in a move reminiscent of yesterday's challenge, with the one exception of Cade's raging hard-on being trapped between their bodies.
She tapped his arm with one clawed finger to indicate the need for his restraint on her was no longer needed.
Releasing her throat from his grip he instead gripped her tight pert ass in both hands as she lightly placed her hands on his shoulders.
Lifting Mina to align their bodies to consummate their mating, Cade looked deep into Mina's golden eyes.
"Are you ready Mina," he said breathlessly as his body shook with lustful need, and his hips gave small involuntary pumps sliding the underside of his painfully engorged dick against Mina's drenched lips.
"More than you will ever know my Cade, I have waited so long for this moment," she replied with a small mewl as the underside of his dick stimulated her clit.
Cade smiled as he brought his mate's face up to his and kissed her, their make out from the day before paling in comparison.
Cade and Mina's moans reached a crescendo as he lined his length up with Mina's drenched sex and thrust into her, burying the first three inches of his length.
"Oh, my Cade!" She said with a moan as she slowly grew accustomed to her mate's girth.
"You are so tight and wet for me my mate, so very tight," Cade said as his eyes threatened to roll back in his head as she began to slowly work him inside of her.
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