She shrieked to raise the roof. He snatched her ankle and dragged her back toward him. She fought and clawed the bedding, but he jumped on her and pinned her under his massive chest. He sank his teeth into her neck and snarled.
They both collapsed laughing on the bed. Abel hugged her around the shoulders and pressed his hard body against her back. Onyx relaxed under that comforting weight. He kissed her neck and ears and nuzzled her cheeks until she craned around to kiss him.
His other hand worked under her to touch her all over. He cupped her breast and tickled down her stomach to her pants. “Hey, baby?”
She purred against his mouth. “Hmm?”
“Are you happy?”
She wanted to turn around, but she wanted to stay where she was, too. She wanted him to take her like this, all dominant and hard and sure of himself. She wanted to submit to his every whim and fantasy. She never wanted anything else. “Happier than ever. You make me happy.”
He sank deeper on top of her when he let out his breath. “It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
“It’s beyond good,” she replied. “It’s incredible.”
“We’ve got the whole world in front of us. Do you think it’s like this for all couples? Do you think they all feel this happiness?”
“I guess so,” she replied. “I never mated for life before. I never wanted to.”
He rolled off her and stretched out behind her. He caressed all down her body to guide her back against him. She weaseled into his arms. She wanted to become him, to subsume her body into his. She couldn’t do that any better if she faced him than she could right now.
Instead of escalating, though, he softened. He enclosed her in his protective embrace, and his fevered murmurs sparkled against her ear. “What do you think they’re doing back home right now?”
She smiled to herself. “I guess they’re getting…supper ready, too.”
“I wonder if we’ll ever stop missing them.”
She stroked the arms and hands touching her all over. “The good news is, we don’t have to stop. We can miss them and love them and wish them well. At least we don’t have to face the human world alone. I feel sorry for shifters living away from Hadison. That must be as lonely as it gets.”
He pressed his eyes into her neck. “I don’t want to think about being lonely, not when I’m lying here with you.”
“Don’t, then. Don’t think about it. We’ll never be lonely again, not as long as we have each other.”
He took big, wet bites of her neck. He rubbed her stomach so hard her shirt came loose. He niggled his fingers under it. He trailed his nails along her sides and belly until she convulsed in thrilling shudders. Her teeth chattered, and her eyes rolled back in her head. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”
His muscles tensed to take her, but she already dissolved in that blissful soup of delicious hot nectar. She shoved her body back into him in glorious ecstasy. He would take her there, where she lived and loved and died and came back reborn. He encompassed her whole world now, a world full of promise and love and endless beginnings.
******The End.
Book 3: May
Sarah J. Stone
40. Chapter 1
May MacAllister took a glass milk bottle out of the refrigerator and poured it over her breakfast cereal. “You can’t let him push you around like this. You have to stand up for yourself.”
Her brother Silas leaned against the counter next to her. He kept his voice low the same way she did, even though no one was around to hear them. “I’m not letting him push me around by picking and choosing when I confront him.”
“The more you let him order you around, the more he thinks he owns the place,” May murmured back. “You’re the only one who can make him pull his head in.”
A wry smile touched Silas’s lips. “I’m glad you think so, little sister. Shaw Cunningham is my brother-in-law, and he does outweigh me by at least seventy-five pounds. Craft and cunning are my best and only weapons, and I have to use them. I’m not ready to fight him for control over this tribe, and when the time comes, I have to do it on my own terms. That’s the only way I can win.”
May took a bite of her cereal. “I just hate to see a dunce like that lording it over you. You’re ten times the Alpha he is. You’ve got all your side businesses raking in the profits. You’re more confident and influential than ever. If anybody’s going to take over after Dad, it should be you.”
Silas snorted. “Yeah, that’s the problem. Everybody keeps commenting on how successful and confident and influential I’m getting. It only makes Shaw more defensive. The stronger I get, the more he has to order me around to put me in my place. I’m not Alpha yet, and I won’t ever be if I don’t keep my head around him. I have to let him think I’m weaker, or at least obedient. When I decide the time is right, I’ll make my move. You can be sure of that.”
May carried her cereal to the kitchen table. “I wish Briar was still here. Everything started to go wrong when she left to marry Riskin Dodd.”
“Don’t wish that,” Silas replied. “You know how happy she is with Riskin, and now she’s got a baby girl. Things were already getting tense between me and Shaw before she left. They were bound to come to a head sometime, even if she was still here.”
“It’s almost too much to ask you to wait, though,” May returned. “It’s not like Dad is sick or dying or anything. Shaw could boss you around for a long time before you get a chance to fight him.”
“The longer Dad stays alive and healthy, the happier I’ll be. The longer I can postpone fighting Shaw, the better.”
“How can you say that?” May cried. “How can you want to keep kowtowing to him the way you do?”
“Keep your voice down or he’ll hear you,” Silas whispered. “I’m happy to kowtow to him as long as it takes to get the job done. If I had my way, I would never fight him.”
May stared at him with her mouth open. Her spoon hung idle in her hand. Then she smacked her lips and shook her head over the bowl. “You didn’t just say that. You didn’t just say you wanted to spend the rest of your life under Shaw Cunningham’s heel.”
Silas chuckled. “I won’t live the rest of my life under his heel. I’m not under his heel now. Every day that goes by puts more and more control over this tribe into my hands. He knows it, too. That’s why he keeps trying to pick a fight with me. Every time I let one of those challenges slip past without rising to the bait, I win. Pretty soon, he won’t control anything that goes on in this tribe. I’ll be Alpha by de facto, and there’s nothing under the sun he can do about it.”
May could only shake her head. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
He replied so softly she barely heard him. “I do. Dad won’t be Alpha forever. He’s already losing strength. Everyone keeps looking around to see who will take over when he’s gone. The more control I can get without fighting, the more people will support me. Once I’ve got them, I can take over without answering Shaw’s challenge.”
“I hate this situation,” May hissed. “I hate living with all this tension. It’s driving me insane. It’s driving everyone insane. You two can’t be the same room without major tensions threatening to explode. We all just want it to blow up into the open so we can get it over with.”
He patted her hand. “Just try to put up with it a little longer. It can’t be as bad for you as it is for me. I’ve got to lick Shaw’s boots every time he tells me to. Don’t you think I hate that?”
“You don’t act like you hate it. You act like you don’t mind it too much at all.”
“Well, I do hate it. I can only live with it because I know it puts more power and control in my hands. He doesn’t realize he hands over power to me every time he does it. If he did, he wouldn’t do it so much.”
He chuckled again, but May didn’t see anything funny about this. She’d like to slap Shaw Cunningham’s sneering face every time he humiliated Silas in front of the whole family. Shaw thought that marrying their older si
ster Dana gave him the right to walk in and take over the place. Well, he better learn that wasn’t going to happen. Marrying Dana didn’t take away Silas’s rightful place as their father’s heir, and it didn’t make Shaw Alpha.
She understood Silas’s point, though. No matter how nicely he dressed, no matter how many millions he made with his business ventures, he could never match Shaw in size, weight, and experience. Silas had to rely on raw determination and strategy to win the day.
At that moment, a firm knock rattled the front door. May stood up. “I’ll get it. It’s Haven Farrell coming over to visit. She wants me to go with her to buy some fabric for her wedding dress.”
“What does she need a wedding dress for?” Silas asked. “She and Foicks are already living together. They’re already married.”
May grabbed the door handle and swung it open. She started to say something about Haven’s dress when she froze stock still. Instead of Haven Farrell, she beheld standing on her front porch the most massive black man she ever laid eyes on. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
The man’s head almost touched the porch rafters. May never saw anyone so tall except Walker Cunningham, and this man dwarfed Walker. His simple linen shirt did nothing to hide his chest, arms, and shoulders swollen with muscle. He carried a battered canvas backpack slung over one shoulder. Dozens of tiny braids dangled all over his head. They covered his forehead in a short bob.
His deep brown eyes dipped once to May’s feet and roamed back up to her face. The two stood there regarding each other, not saying anything. May opened and closed her mouth more than once, but she couldn’t think of one thing to say. Who was this man, and what was he doing on Bruins’ Peak? Only hunters came up to Bruins’ Peak, and those people didn’t knock on your door and stare at you like this.
She stood there so long Silas got up from the table. He yanked the door back, and when he saw the black man, he opened and closed his mouth, too. He stared and stared at this unusual sight. He couldn’t think of anything to say, either. There was nothing to say.
The guy looked them both over. When they didn’t say anything, he spoke first. “How are you doing? Great morning, isn’t it? I was just looking for Dunlap Homestead. Would you be able to tell me where that is?”
May swallowed to get her voice working. “Dunlap Homestead?” How could he know to call it that?
He offered his hand to Silas. “Sorry. You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here. I’m Arryn Stark. I’m visiting from the NightShade. Ash Dunlap sent me to talk to his people, but I seem to have gotten lost on this mountain. He gave me a map, but all the roads twisting and turning around made me lose my way. I’ve never been off Renegade Ridge before.” He glanced out at the forest. “If you just tell me where Dunlap Homestead is, I’ll be on my way. I won’t bother you anymore.”
Silas burst into action. “Ash Dunlap? Of course! So sorry. Of course. Come right in.” He seized Arryn’s hand and hauled him into the house. “I’m Silas MacAllister. Have a seat while I call Aiken and tell him you’re here. As soon as I talk to him, I’ll drive you over to their house. I’m sure they’re expecting you.” He dug his phone out of his pocket.
Arryn surveyed the house. “They are expecting me. Ash phoned them to tell them I was coming.”
Silas pushed him into a chair. “Sit down, sit down. Do you want something to eat? You must have had a long bus drive. How about a glass of iced tea? We’ve got breakfast, too. How about some rashers of bacon and scrambled eggs? Did you eat breakfast this morning? How long is the bus ride from Burkes Road?”
Arryn grinned. All his teeth sparkled out of his dark face. “Slow down, man. Not so many questions at once. You sound like my daddy, throwing food at a body when he first walks through the door. The trip is only two hours, and I ate a good breakfast before I left, so I’m not hungry. Thank you, anyway. You go ahead. I’ll just talk to you while you eat.”
“I already ate, too,” Silas replied. “I’m up at four every day to work out and eat breakfast and take a shower before I hit the dusty trail. You know what I mean?”
Arryn laughed out loud. His big, booming laugh filled the whole house. May blinked at him from across the room. Even now, when she knew who he was and what he was doing here, she couldn’t get over how different he was from anything or anyone she’d ever seen before. So this was a NightShade. His whole being brooded dark power. His black skin cut straight out of the night, and his teeth and eyes winked out from the fabric of darkness itself.
He glanced over at her, and his eye twinkled. “Sit, Miss. You’re making me uncomfortable. I can’t sit in the presence of a lady.”
Silas burst out laughing. “That’s my sister, May. She was in the middle of her cereal when she answered the door. May, finish your breakfast.”
May shook herself. “I’m not hungry anymore, either.”
She took her bowl to the sink, but she still hesitated to sit down across from Arryn. Getting that close to him scared the daylights out of her, but he fascinated her no end. She wanted to see him up close and talk to him, but something held her away.
Silas punched his phone screen. “Hang on while I talk to Aiken.”
Arryn studied the surroundings in minute detail while he waited. Didn’t he live in a house like this back on Renegade Ridge? He couldn’t have inspected it more closely if he’d landed from another planet.
Silas put his phone down. “He didn’t answer. I’ll have to drive you over there cold turkey, but since they already know you’re coming, there shouldn’t be any problem. Come on.”
Arryn climbed out of his chair. He gave May another toothy smile. When she just stood there staring like a fool, he lowered his eyes, but he wouldn’t stop smiling at her.
The two men headed for the door, and Silas held it open for Arryn to pass through. Just then, a stocky figure thumped around the porch corner and blocked the door from the other side. A big, burly man in faded jeans, a plaid shirt, and a dusty, beaten cowboy hat and boots swelled his shoulders to fill the whole doorway. He glared at Silas. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Silas stiffened, but he kept his voice steady and calm. “Hello there, Shaw. This is Arryn Stark. He’s the emissary from the NightShade on Renegade Ridge. He’s headed to Dunlap Homestead, but he lost his way. I’m driving him over there.”
Shaw paid no attention to Arryn. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re gonna take me to your office and show me your bank account records on all your businesses.”
Silas narrowed his eyes. “What do you want to see that for?”
“I’m in line to take over as Alpha of this tribe,” Shaw replied. “I better know every penny you’re bringing in. How much have you got squirrelled away while you’re living in this house and eating food out of the fridge? You won’t get rich on this tribe without showing me everything you’re doing and every dime you’re bringing in. You can go on your errand of mercy after you show me.”
May’s temper flared. She forgot all about staring at Arryn. She stormed up to the doorway. “Don’t you dare stick your nose into Silas’s business. What he does and what he earns is none of your concern. You’re not Alpha around here, and you never will be. You leave him alone.”
Shaw puffed out his cheeks, and his shoulders swelled under his shirt, but before he could blow up, Silas held out his hand. “Never mind, May. If he wants to see my bank records, he’s welcome to it. I have nothing to hide from you, Shaw, or from any other member of this tribe. I’m sure if Dad wanted to audit my bank records, he would have done it by now.”
“You leave him out of this,” Shaw rumbled. “You’ll do what I say, boy, or I’ll see you do.”
“Is there a problem here?” Arryn asked.
“You upstart!” May spluttered.
“There’s no problem here,” Silas replied. “Come on, Shaw. I’ll show you the records right now. I’m sorry, Arryn. I won’t be able to drive you over to the Dunlaps’ right away. I’m sure May can show you the
way on your map. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
He strode out of the room. He turned down the hall toward his room that doubled as his office. Shaw clomped across the living room and disappeared down the hall behind him.
41. Chapter 2
Arryn watched Shaw and Silas out of sight. A hush fell over the house. When he looked around, he found May gazing after the two men, too. “What was that all about?”
May shuddered, and a furious scowl spread over her face. “I wish I could challenge Shaw Cunningham. I wish I could wipe that stupid expression right off his face.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s my older sister Dana’s husband. Ever since he moved in here, he’s been angling to take over, and that means putting Silas down. Silas is too smart and successful for him, and everybody likes Silas. He’s my father’s only son. He should be Alpha after Dad dies, but Shaw wants to push him out. He’ll take any opportunity to kick Silas in the teeth.”
“Why does Silas put up with it? Why doesn’t he fight back?”
“He’s much smaller than Shaw. He’s not sure he can win in an open fight, so he wants to consolidate his power in other ways before they come to a full confrontation.”
Arryn nodded. “Makes sense. Your brother is a smart man.”
“You don’t know the half of it. He’s running three successful internet businesses. He pretty much runs our tribe’s dairy operation. He’s making powerful friends and winning them to support his bid to take over. He says if he keeps on working the way he is, he’ll become Alpha by de facto. He won’t have to fight Shaw.”
“What’s wrong with that plan? It sounds like he’s got the whole thing stitched up.”
May punched one fist into her other palm. “I just can’t stand seeing Shaw shove him around. I’d like to teach him a lesson myself.”
Arryn chuckled. “Sounds to me like Silas is already teaching him a lesson in power and influence. Shaw will never forget that lesson. It’s not all about size and weight when it comes to a fight. You know what Sun Tzu says. The true victory comes without fighting.”
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