by Renee George
*
Solange melted when Ty stroked her face and moved his body close to hers. He gripped her shoulders, his fingers squeezing, nearly painful. “Think, Solange. You must get this right.”
An insidiousness she hadn’t felt before crept into her awareness. Ty’s eyes were different. Instead of dark brown, they had turned inky blue. She could feel his frustration, but didn’t understand the urgency. His fingertips had turned cold and were really starting to pinch. “Could you ease up a little?”
His eyes were wild, unnatural as he tightened his grip. “You must listen to me.” His voice sounded like two voices layered over one. ”I must kill the bear. I’ve tried to get close, but he has something that stops me from being able to control him. You will help me.”
For a brief moment, Solange wanted to obey the suggestion, but impulse had been fleeting. When Ty snarled at her, she struggled against his menacing grip. “I’m not killing anyone.”
“Silly child. I don’t want you to kill him.” Ty’s eye color swirled with lighter shades of violet. “His power is mine!”
Heart racing, shallow breathing, tightness in her chest—yes, Sol thought, this was definitely what fear felt like. A surge of energy rippled through her skin, and Ty, or at least the thing wearing his body, was blown several feet from her. Solange didn’t wait around to see if the doppelganger got up. Instead, she took off in a sprint back the way they had traveled. Blackness consumed the night the further she ran. The stars, the moon, the grass, the entire world disappeared.
She imagined the thing pretending to be Ty was right behind her, coming after her, but she couldn’t hear his footsteps, or anything for that matter, no laughing coyotes or mocking ravens, only her panting breath as it whooshed out with every footfall. All of a sudden, crash, her body smacked against something solid and the hard wall shattered like sugar glass.
Sol fell to her knees through the barrier. When she looked up, Red Sun sat across from her, and Ty still occupied the floor to her left. She was back in the medicine man’s shack. She struggled to stand. “What did you do to me?”
Chapter 8
Solange barely had time to catch her breath, to realize she was safe, when Ty asked, “What did the spirits reveal?” His voice had deepened, slowed to a sexy timber. She felt the words slide down her body like hands of a lover. Punching the man sounded like a great plan, but her trip “through the looking glass” would have given even Alice reason to pause.
“None of its real,” Sol said.
“It is real.”
She stood up and walked out of the shack. It was nighttime, nearly identical to the setting of the so-called vision, and she wondered if she was still under the influence.
“I don’t understand what’s going on, Ty.”
“You are a witch,” he said gently, “and I am a bear shifter.” Ty began to take off his clothes, which Sol thought was totally wrong time, wrong place, especially after that wild announcement. She stared at his muscled form, too stunned to speak. God, his body was magnificent. “Don’t be afraid, Solange.”
“Uh-huh,” she managed to grunt out.
His bones snapped and twisted as fur sprouted along his skin.
When his face took on the shape of a bear’s maw, Sol stumbled back. “Stop!” she shouted, remembering the vision. The thing that had been Ty in the vision wanted to kill a bear. No, not just a bear, but Ty. “Please, Ty. Stop.”
His shift faltered, and his body once again became human. “You cannot accept me.” His open hands fell to his side.
“It isn’t that,” Sol said. For the first time, she believed. And if everything happening was true then Ty’s life was in peril. “The thing. The creature from my walk. It’s wants to kill your bear. It wants your power. If you change, she’ll find you. I don’t know how I know, but I do.” She dropped to her knees with exhaustion. The entire day seemed to catch up to her all at once.
“You need rest,” Ty said. He knelt beside her and picked her up. “Tomorrow, we’ll search for the witch.”
Easily, and much to Solange’s surprise, he carried her without even straining. In her heart, she understood the truth. She and Ty had a destiny together—and she didn’t want to fight it anymore.
She wanted to embrace it.
*
Ty carried Sol to a sweat tent his uncle kept out back. The tribal elders held council there once a month, so his uncle kept it clean and comfortable. He placed Sol on a pallet of furs on the floor near the far end, past the pit filled with stones. “Try to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”
Ty lay down next to her. He needed her like he needed water to drink and air to breathe. His kind were natural enemies with hers, so why did having her near feel so right? Red Sun had called Sol Ty’s mate.
How could that be possible?
When she rolled to her side and slid her hand across his chest, he shivered. Her touch electrified him.
“You know you’re still naked, right?”
“And you,” he said. “Are not.” He sat up, and she mimicked his action. One by one, Ty undid the buttons on her blouse, enjoying every new reveal of skin as the fabric opened for her him. Her breasts were encapsulated in a lacey bra. It was a front-hook bra, and in less than a second, he had it open. Her soft mounds spilled to his hands. He palmed their weight as he leaned down to capture her lips.
She groaned against his mouth, and his balls tightened to his body. “It shouldn’t be so,” he murmured against her lips. “But you are my woman.”
Her arms wound around the back of his neck as he lay her back down. His heart soared when she said, “I am, Ty Wasape. I am your woman.”
*
The fur beneath her body felt coarse against her skin, like a three days’ growth of a man’s beard. The thought of chin and cheeks rubbing against her sent a thrill starting at the top of her abdomen and ending in a throbbing ache between her thighs.
Oh God! He was gorgeous. Even more so, since the braid he normally wore had disappeared when he’d transformed from man to bear and back into a man. Sol swallowed, her nipples growing taut with arousal as his thick, coarse hair brushed against them.
He adjusted his position, giving Sol a delicious view of his muscled chest and stomach as he sensually eased down her panties. When he kissed her stomach, Sol bit her lower lip, tugging it under her teeth. Nervousness, along with excitement, played in her mind. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted a single thing in her life.
He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek, down her neck and shoulders. “You’re so beautiful.” He kissed her forehead. “So sexy.”
“Make love to me.”
“Yes,” he whispered. His eyes had darkened, and with his long hair falling over his shoulders, he was a vision of eroticism.
Sol wet her lips. Ty kissed her, at first a light dance of lips and tongue until it became progressively scorching. He worked his way down her throat. Sliding her shirt and bra off her shoulders, he kissed along the line of her collarbone. Her body responded with pulsing need.
Ty’s hand slid down her legs, then up, tugging her skirt up over her thighs. His calloused hands contrasted the sensation of his soft lips shifting to her breasts. “Oh, yes,” she breathed out, more than said, as he slid his fingers between her thighs.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured against her skin. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I get hard every time I’m near you. I want you with a desperation I have never known before.”
She gasped a breath as he plunged a finger into her slick depths. When she could speak, she said, “You have the same effect on me.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Sol felt his grin against her skin. Ty’s teeth tugged at her nipple, his tongue laving the nub as he stroked a finger in and out of her. She arched her back, forcing her breast against his mouth, daring him to take more of her. He obliged, filling his mouth and sucking harder.
She could feel an orgasm building, mounting its pressure, ready to explode. “I want you now. I need to feel you inside me.”
Ty climbed between Sol’s legs, kneeling before her. His large cock sprang forward and twitched—pre-cum shining on the head. Wet heat drenched her sex as she stared at him. “God, you’re fucking beautiful.”
“That’s my line.” Ty grinned wickedly, and it was the first time Sol noted that he looked truly happy.
She grabbed his long hair and pulled him down onto her chest. “In. Me. Now.”
He entered swiftly and without any gentleness, the exact way she’d needed. Sol cried out as his large shaft stretched her wide open as their bodies merged. “Yes,” she said, tears of joy leaking from her eyes. “God yes.”
*
Amazement flashed through Ty’s mind as the walls of her sex surrounded his shaft in undulating spasms. He stroked hard and fast. Possession was what he wanted, to completely claim Sol Tremaine, to make her his and his alone. He hardly knew the woman—the witch. The thought did not stop his want or need. His cock throbbed, growing impossibly hard as he drew closer to climax. No, this is too fast. He slowed his stroke to regain control.
Sol groaned when he changed his speed, her need as great as his. He wanted their first time last, but her grasping hot sex made it next to impossible to maintain his restraint. He pulled out, pushing her warm juice across her clit.
“What are you…?” She trailed off as he slid down her body, and he wrapped his lips around her clit, nibbling and sucking the swollen mound. Lifting her thighs over his shoulders, he thrust his tongue into her opening. He lapped at her cream as if it was the nectar of the gods, life itself. He wanted to take her inside of him, as she had taken him, and devour all that was or ever would be Solange Tremaine.
“Oh yes, oh God.” She moaned as her thighs tightened around his face. She grabbed his hair and crushed his mouth against her, forcing his tongue deeper. “I’m…going…to…” she panted, biting off the words as a scream of ecstasy tore from her throat. Her back bowed as she exploded in orgasm, thighs shaking, channel constricting, as he continued to thrust with his tongue until her cries of pleasure died down to a whimper.
“Ty, that was…that was by far…”
He angled his body once more to kneeling between her legs. “Not over.” The words came out fierce, growling, thick and feral with desire.
“What?”
His mating impulse overwhelmed his good sense, and his bear took over. “I’m not finished with you, my love. Not by a long shot.”
*
Before she could ask what he meant, Ty flipped Sol over onto her stomach and pulled her legs up his thighs until he impaled her. The swiftness stole her breath, and his heat surrounded her with a burning desire.
She had been about to tell him she’d never had an orgasm take her with so much power, but the strength with which he’d managed to manipulate her body astounded her. She could feel the arousal building once again as he thrust inside her. Only his arm around her waist kept her from collapsing to the floor.
His hair dragged like silk over her back. He reached for her clit and found gold. Solange whimpered at the erotic assault on her body. Ty kissed her neck, his strokes in and out of her never ending.
“Solange,” he whispered against her skin.
Her nipples rubbed against the coarse fur, heightening her arousal. Pleasure built with every stroke and thrust, until…“Ty!” Her knees hit the fur as she pushed up on her arms, and ground her ass against his groin. She quaked with wave after wave of orgasm spilling over her. “Ah!” And when the ecstasy lulled, another wave of pleasure hit her.
Ty grabbed her hips. His thrusting grew frenetic and fierce. A warrior’s cry of triumph left his mouth as she felt a pain in her right hip. He jerked his hips as he spent his seed inside her.
When he rolled off her and to his side, he stared down at Solange’s hip. There were four bleeding lines in her tender flesh. He moved until his lips hovered over the stripes, and he gently licked her wounds.
His ministrations soothed the burning pain.
When he finished, he stared into her eyes, his expression possessive. “I’ve marked you.”
“What does that mean?”
“We are mated.”
*
He’d tasted her blood and something inside him crumpled. He was no longer a shadow warrior on a mission, he was a man in love. Much more dangerous. And because he was in love, he told Solange everything about himself, including the task that had brought him to the reservation.
When he finished, Sol placed her hand on his chest. “This witch is evil.”
“Yes,” he said. “The sorcellarie has killed men for power.”
“The witch came to me in the spirit walk. She—he—it wanted me to help kill you. It said you had something protecting you from the magic.”
“A token stone carved into the shape of a bear. Red Sun used it to defeat a witch when he was a young man.”
“Where is it now?”
“It’s…” Ty realized he’d taken his clothes off at his uncle’s shack. The token had been in his jeans’ pocket. “I left it in my pants.”
“We have to get it, Ty.” She sat up and started grabbing for her own clothes. An explosion made her scream.
Ty scrambled from the tent. In the distance, he saw his uncle’s shack on fire. He had to get to Red Sun. In human form he was quick, but in bear form, he was incredibly fast. He shifted, ignoring the rush of pleasurable endorphins that accompanied the change, and as a large black bear, he ran toward the blaze.
Standing outside the hut, Johnny White stood, his head high, his expression pleased, as he watched the fire rage. The bear skidded to halt when he noticed Johnny was next to Ty’s fallen clothing. The young man held up a hand, and Ty went down onto his belly and crawled submissively toward him. Johnny was the sorcellarie, but how could that be? He’d known the guy for several years. He’d never felt any magic in him.
“You see, Wasape. You have no choice than to obey me. The woman helped me, even though she didn’t want to.” Johnny winked. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to thank her.”
Ty’s fear for Solange gave him a surge of strength, and he managed to stand. Johnny laughed. “You are strong.”
“Leave him alone,” a woman shouted. Ty couldn’t look, but he knew it was Solange. He knew from the look on Johnny’s face, he was taking pleasure in their pain.
Johnny raised his hand, and Ty couldn’t stop himself from turning toward his mate. He wanted to tell her to run, but all that came out of his wide and terrible maw was a roar that could level a building. He had no control as he charged Sol, but her terrified scream gave him another surge of strength. He threw his body sideways before tackling her.
Solange scrambled toward the burning shack.
“Enough,” Johnny said. His expression turned angry. He gestured at Ty, making a clawing motion.
Suddenly, Ty understood how and why the other men had wounds on their stomachs. Ty’s large claw dug into his own gut, and he knew then, without a doubt, that Johnny had made the other shifters mutilate themselves. Soon, the witch would slice his throat and it would be over.
*
Solange saw Red Sun on the ground next to his front porch. She crawled to the old man and checked his pulse. Still alive, thank heavens. He was murmuring something she could quite hear over the sound of the fire. She moved her ear closer to his mouth.
“Your spirit walk. Answer the riddle. Save him.”
The riddle? Was he talking about the raven’s riddle? She glanced at the black bear. Oh God, he stomach bled as he ripped into his own flesh. Was the answer really in the riddle? Could it be any more complicated? What had the raven said?
I cry but have no voice, no wings but I can fly, no teeth but I can bite, no mouth yet you can hear my whisperings. Who am I?
She closed her eyes concentrating, and instinctually, a
s an artist, she created a canvas of colors in her mind. First, giving color to the cry that comes with no voice, broad cerulean strokes, whooshing across like a wolf’s howl. Next, she added several swoops of purple to represent flying without wings, then small circles of goldenrod laced within the blue to represent a whisper without a mouth. Lastly, she chose white, because it represented to her a sheer cold that could bite without teeth. She swirled the white until it grabbed every color and blended the lines like a tornado.
“Oh my God! I’ve got it!” She rolled to her feet. “The wind,” she said triumphantly. She held up her hands. “I am the wind.”
Dust and dirt swirled at Johnny’s feet until it covered his entire body. He shouted his frustration as Solange ran to Ty’s jeans. She snatched them up and rummaged the pockets as she raced to where Ty lay bleeding. The stone was sharp in her hand and it cut her when she gripped it in her fist. Pure instinct had her shoving the stone deeply into Ty’s wound. The bear roared, but she wasn’t frightened. “Fight,” she told her mate. “Fight and win.”
The bear surged to his feet and charged as Johnny swatted at the dust, sticks, and pebbles encircling his body.
“No!” A Native American woman, dark hair and a wide face, stood just outside the fight between the bear and Johnny. Her gaze, burning with the grim light of dark magic, seared Solange. The woman raised her palms and made a pushing motion.
A blast of energy threw Solange back several feet, and she landed on her ass. The pain of impact wiped the colors from her mind and the dust devil dissipated.
Solange’s heart stuttered when she heard the scream. She twisted her body and saw Ty’s bear grappling with Johnny. Sol thought the woman looked familiar, but she couldn’t place her. But where would she have seen a witch?
The woman gathered power, focusing the energy toward the fight. Her skin began to glow as she held her arms out and chanted. The bear reared on its hind legs and roared in pain.
Solange scrambled to her feet. The woman hadn’t given her a second look after she’d knocked her down. Obviously, the dark-haired witch didn’t think Sol was a threat. She usually hated it when people underestimated her, but in this case she counted it as a blessing.