She shook her head. “No, I went for a long run, but it was in the opposite direction from where you guys said the creatures were.”
His voice was harsh with anger. “Why would you take a risk like that?”
She paused for a moment. “I was upset when I left the lodge, because of how we’re getting along right now.” That was actually the truth. She didn’t want to have to lie to Carver.
“If you’re upset, you just need to talk to me about it. Not put your life at risk.” He stared at her. “I made your family a promise. If anything happened to you, not only would your father issue me a Death Challenge, but I’d accept it and not fight back.”
She gasped in horror. “No!” she cried out involuntarily, her eyes filling with tears at the thought of Carver sprawled on the ground, blood pooling around his cooling corpse.
He managed a smile. “Well, at least you care about me a little bit.”
“Good God, Carver, do you think I don’t care about you? Of course I care about you, you enormous jackass.”
Now his smile was a full-on grin. “Oh, terms of endearment, I like it. Say some more sweet things to me.”
“You’re a complete jerk, and a stubborn moron, and you frequently drive me crazy and make me want to brain you with a lamp.” Now he was laughing. “But what stops me is the realization that you’d actually have to have some brains for that to work.” She smiled at him. “Okay, my turn. Feel free to insult me all you want.”
“You’re a beautiful, sexy, infuriating, kind, generous, mysterious, she-wench who is far too nice to shifters who don’t deserve it.”
“That’s all you got?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“’Fraid so.”
She moved closer to him and circled her arms around his waist, leaning in to him. She felt the thick, throbbing length of his erection pressed against her stomach and sucked in her breath, her body going liquid with desire.
He pulled her closer to him, the muscles of his arms bunching.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you everything,” she said. “I don’t want us to fight. Overall, I feel like we’re really getting along. I don’t hate being married to you anywhere near as much as I thought I would.”
At that, he threw back his head and roared with laughter. “I’m restarting my list. Of reasons I am going to spank your ass.”
“All right, I kind of miss you all the time when you’re not with me,” she grudgingly admitted. “Every single second. Don’t let it go to your head. And I hate that you slept on the couch last night.”
“I hate it too. You know what I miss?”
“What?”
A predatory gleam flared in his eyes. “I miss fucking my beautiful wife.”
Chapter Seventeen
It didn’t take her long to strip out of the clothes she’d hastily donned in the mud room, and by time she was done, Carver was gloriously naked, his erect cock standing up proudly from its nest of crisp dark curls.
He sat on the bed and patted his lap, a wicked gleam in his eyes, his lips curled in a crooked smile that made her heart skip a beat.
He patted his lap and raised an eyebrow. “Just because I want to fuck you doesn’t mean I’m not mad with you,” he informed her. “You shouldn’t have gone running by yourself. I think you’ve earned yourself another spanking, don’t you?”
She started to protest, but then she noticed the determination in his eyes, behind that playful gleam, and she remembered the incredible sensations their spanking session had sent through her the last time.
Adopting a mutinous expression in an attempt to hide the fact that her pussy was suddenly pulsing with desire, she stomped over to him, hips swinging, and positioned herself across his lap. “You are such a jerk,” she taunted him, then squealed and jerked as his palm landed hard on her bottom.
Her flesh was still a little tender and the impact stung, but it was a pleasant ache that spread throughout her body, making her toes curl. The hair on her nape stood on end and every nerve in her body came alive with anticipation as she waiting for the next smack.
Carver didn’t disappoint her. He alternated crisp, controlled blows and kneading her tingling flesh in his big palms until she was gasping and writhing, unsure where the pain ended and the pleasure began. Her pussy was clenching and weeping, her thighs sticky with desire, and she ached for the rock-hard length she could feel pressing against her belly.
Carver grunted with satisfaction and bent down to place tender kisses to her hot flesh. He nipped playfully at her sore buttock with his teeth, making her squeak, then groan as he soothed the skin with patient lapping of his tongue.
He lifted her off his lap and sprawled back on his elbows, exposing the long, muscled lines of his body and the eager jut of his cock. He smiled lazily at her, a look of blatant invitation, and heat pooled in Virginia’s belly and cunt.
She straddled him, moving slowly, taking her time. His shaft nestled in her sopping folds and she ran her hands over the muscles of his chest, kissed his throat, tweaked his nipples between her fingers, making him jerk beneath her touch.
Then she took his hot, heavy length in her hand and positioned him at her tight entrance, quivering around him at the mere thought of him filling her.
She sank down slowly, inch by exquisite inch, moaning long and low with abandoned pleasure as she took him deep inside.
His eyes fluttered shut and he groaned, pushing his hips up to meet hers so that he was buried to the hilt in her throbbing pussy. The look on his face was one of concentration, his brow slightly furrowed as he focused on every nuance of sensation.
Her body clenched around him and he responded with a sigh and a shudder, moving his hands to clutch her hips and encourage her to move above him.
Virginia rose above him, rotating her hips, drawing back until he was barely inside her. Then she sank down again, glorying in his unsteady breathing, his soft moans. It was a heady sensation having such carnal power over this most alpha of Alphas. He might be maddening in his desire to protect her at all costs, but when it counted – when it was just the two of them, raw and naked and vulnerable – he was willing to give her power over him. The thought made her heart clutch in her chest.
As her arousal built, she began to move faster, biting her lip as she found an angle that made his head rub over her G-spot each time she bore down on him. A fine sheen of sweat covered his chest, and she leaned down to lick the salty musk from his skin and nip briefly at one pebbled nipple.
He groaned, then grinned up at her before catching her off-guard with a swift roll of his hips that made her clench around him.
She rose and fell above him, heart pounding in her chest, thighs trembling. She lifted her hands to play with her breasts, displaying them to him, tweaking at her nipples and rolling them between her fingers.
He groaned and flexed his hips again.
Virginia leaned down and took his mouth. She flicked his tongue with hers and suckled at his lips, enjoying the slide of her breasts against his muscular chest and the new angle that abraded her clit every time she moved over him.
Carver wrapped his arms around her back and held her close as her body began to pulse and contract around his. An explosion of pleasure detonated inside her and she cried his name, rolling her hips again and again, unable to get enough of the sensation of sweet release.
As the flutterings of her orgasm subsided, Carver gave a low, tortured groan and spilled himself inside her, pumping his seed into her grasping channel as she panted and whimpered above him.
She collapsed on top of him, spent. Their skin was damp, the air filled with the musky scent of their sex. She wanted to stay there forever.
Every time she thought she knew her husband, she saw a new side to him. A strong man. A stern man. A playful man. A man who would do anything to please his woman.
His woman… She caught her breath, realizing she was allowing herself to hope. Maybe, just maybe, if she was luckier than she’d ever been in her li
fe, they could make this thing work. Maybe she could be the Alpha’s mate, and still remain herself.
Chapter Eighteen
Virginia stood outside the clinic, sipping her coffee as Carver drove off. Her rear end was still tingling from last night, but she had decided not to heal it. She liked the way it felt. It made her feel as if Carver were there with her.
The sun was climbing higher in the sky, warming the chill air, but a wintry gust brought her back to reality, reminding her of all the urgent matters that needed her attention. The healer would be wanting to come back to the clinic, and she still needed to decide what to do with that. Now that she had come around to wanting to be really married to Carver, she was realizing it might not be possible. And there were two creatures in the woods that were in terrible danger from the sheriff and his pack, and they needed her help and she didn’t know how to help them.
Her cell phone jangled, making her start.
It was Katrina.
“Good morning. Did you call me up to quiz me about whether or not you were right?” Virginia asked. Truthfully, she didn’t know how she’d answer that question.
“Hey, cuz,” Katrina said. “No, I called to ask you, have you stumbled over any of your family’s spies yet?”
“What?” Virginia said, outraged. “Why would they be here? You mean actually, really here at the lodge?”
“Yes, really really. Apparently. I heard it from a wolf who heard it from a coyote who heard it from a jackal…you know how it goes with shifters, it’s like high school with the gossip…”
“Go on.”
“I didn’t get details, but apparently someone was sent up there to keep an eye on you and report back to your family. Strictly for your own good, of course.”
“Of course,” Virginia said, furious. “Because I’m such an idiot that I can barely tie my own shoes without help.”
“Well, I just thought I’d warn you. Sorry your family’s crazy. Then again, you could have a mother like mine who was ready to sell me off to some rich A-hole Alpha who’d apparently, quote unquote, ‘teach me some discipline’. Urgh. I just went hairy all over thinking about it.” Katrina’s tone turned bitter.
“True, your mother was a grade-A bitch. But my parents are no picnic either. Damn it. All right, I’ve got to go figure this out. Thanks for letting me know.”
She went back to work, rushing through her morning duties.
Carver came to meet her for lunch at noon. As they settled in at the table, she was about to tell him what Karen had told her about her family sending someone to spy on her, but a thought occurred to her. Carver had been speaking about her family an awful lot since they’d been up here. Why was he suddenly so concerned about what they thought and felt?
“Hey, Carver, can I see your cell phone?” she asked as the waitress set menus in front of them.
He glanced away and then looked back up at her. “Yours is broken?”
She met his gaze challengingly. “No. I just want to look through the numbers you’ve been calling.”
“Uhhh….” He had a guilty look on his face.
She speared him with a furious glare. “So you’ve been talking to my family, then? Behind my back?”
He winced. “Wait. I can explain!”
“Oh, there’s no need for that, I understand completely. And I just lost my appetite. I need to get back to the clinic right now,” she said, and left the café, storming off.
“Wait!” he called after her. “They were just worried about you!”
Oh. My. God. She wasn’t free from supervision anywhere. Even on her honeymoon. She flipped him a middle finger and then ran at full speed back to the clinic. At least he had the good sense not to follow her.
She was actually done for the day, because they gave her all the more serious cases in the morning, and handled the less serious cases themselves in the afternoon. However, she healed a few minor cases just to pass some time – an infected hangnail, a youngster with a bloody nose.
She left at 1:30, jogging to the outskirts of town to where she’d arranged the meeting.
* * *
Carver had hung back far enough that Virginia couldn’t scent him, but he still had her in his sights. He stood in an empty lot behind a row of hedges, watching her through a gap.
She was standing on the corner of two small rural streets, in the shade of an oak tree, waiting.
This was probably not the ideal time for him to be spying on her, what with her being royally pissed off with him for talking to her family behind her back, but he had to know. Who was she meeting, and why?
He wasn’t particularly reassured when he saw the man who climbed out of the car and strolled over to Virginia. He recognized him – a wolf shifter named Julius Kostechi.
Virginia greeted the man with a brief hug, which made hair burst through Carver’s skin all over his body. His snout shot out and he let out a growl of rage.
Virginia stepped back and greeted the man, and her demeanor was all business.
Carver forced himself to go human again, stepped out from behind the hedge and strolled towards them. As he did, he saw Virginia’s hand dip into her bag and come out with a small package, which she handed to the man.
Virginia looked up, suddenly. She’d scented him. Her expression grew wary as he stalked up to them.
“Wait, Carver, this isn’t what it looks like!” Virginia cried.
“You aren’t secretly working with the Wardens?”
She winced. “Oh. Okay, then yes, that is what it looks like. I was afraid you thought I was having an affair and you were about to throw down.”
“What did you just hand him?” he asked.
She let out a sigh, glanced at Warden Kostechi, then said, “Blood samples that I secretly took from several of the children who’ve come in to the clinic. There’s something weird with their blood, and I can’t tell what it is. I think that it somehow has something to do with the healer, and why she doesn’t want me here. I’m afraid that maybe she’s experimenting on them somehow.”
Carver shook his head. “Why would the villagers allow that?”
“Maybe they don’t know? I don’t know. I just find it very suspicious that she’s so incredibly territorial, even when she was too sick to heal anyone. I’ve heard that she’s very arrogant and thinks she’s smarter than any other shifter, and it’s possible that’s why, but…I don’t know, there’s something off.”
“We’ve also been notified about the strange creatures in the forest. We’re going to bring in a team, a few hundred men, sometime in the next day or two. This has to be dealt with soon,” Warden Kostechi said to Carver. “We’ve just informed the sheriff.”
Virginia gave him a startled glance. “I think the best thing to do is just capture them,” she said.
Now that was odd. Why was she worried about the wellbeing of misshapen monsters that had murdered an entire family and were now roaming around the outskirts of the village?
“As long as that can be done without risk to any of my people, we’ll certainly try,” Warden Kostechi said. “But given how violent they’ve been, it may not be possible.”
“Oh.” Virginia stared at the ground, clearly troubled. Then she glanced back up at him. “I need to talk to Carver. Do you mind waiting in your car?”
“No problem,” the warden said. He headed back to his car.
Carver watched him climb behind the wheel with a scowl on his face. “How many times have you worked with the Wardens?”
She met his gaze steadily. “I work for them, not with them. They approached me about a year ago to help with certain types of investigations. My family doesn’t know, but when I’ve been travelling to healer’s conferences and to visit with other healers, I’m generally using that as a cover to work with the Wardens on a new case.”
“Why you?” he demanded.
“My healing powers are very strong, and I can do more than heal. I can sense things that other healers can’t. I’m not saying it to bra
g, it’s just a fact.”
“But what do they want from you? What do you investigate?” This was very troubling. It sounded dangerous. He couldn’t let Virginia be in danger, ever.
“I can sense and stop contagious diseases before they spread too far. I can detect illegal drugs, and I can usually even trace them to their origins – what kind of plant or chemical was used to make them. That means the Wardens can move in and shut the operations down quickly. I can sense when Shamans are making people sick illegally, or using other spells in a manner that is not permitted by law.”
“And why did you keep it a secret from everybody?”
“Aside from the fact that my family would have flipped out, working undercover gives me an advantage. I can go into clinics and work there, acting as if I’m just a regular healer. That means that drug users will come in and let me heal their ailments without knowing I’m also secretly analyzing what drugs are running through their systems. I get access to a lot of people who wouldn’t let me near them if they knew I worked with the Wardens.”
Carver stared at her, amazed. There was so much more depth to his beautiful wife than he’d ever known. She was brave. She had talents he’d never dreamed of.
But her bravery exposed her to danger. Drug dealers didn’t like to be exposed and arrested or put to death. Neither did Shamans. Drug users didn’t like to have their supply cut off.
He thought of Virginia being hurt. Virginia being killed. Virginia lying sprawled out on the ground, bleeding…
An involuntary growl burst from his throat. He shook his head angrily. “No!” he said.
She took a step back away from him.
“Excuse me?”
Anger rumbled through him. Anger at those who would take her from him. “You can’t do this anymore! I forbid it. End of story.”
Her expression turned stony. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you, or my family! And this is why I can’t be with an Alpha. I have gifts, and I can use them to save lives. You will not tell me what to do. And furthermore, I know that you’ve been spying on me for my family.”
The Alpha Won't Be Denied Page 11