One True Mate: Shifter's Solace (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Georgette St. Clair

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” came Ben’s voice from the doorway, shattering the spell. “You kicked that foxen bitch’s ass so hard she’ll be looking for her teeth in her panties.” He paused, then shuddered slightly. “Scrap that thought. But you warriored her to a fuckin’ pulp.”

  She smiled through her tears. “I did, didn’t I? I got the jump on her when the front door was kicked in. It startled her.”

  Ben came across and slung his arm around Ivy’s shoulders, leading her from the room. “That was loverboy coming to the rescue,” he said. “We all told him you’d be fine, but he’s such an old woman about the littlest thing…” His voice trailed away.

  Rory kind of wanted to shift, run after Ben, and tear his throat out with his teeth. At the same time he wanted to throw his arms around him and thank him until he was really, really embarrassed. Maybe a brother-figure was just what Ivy needed right now. After all, she’d never had any siblings, and now she was going to have four. Five if you counted the Chief, but he was more of a grumpy uncle. If she would stay, that was. His heart told him she would.

  Outside, the cops and the firefighters were cooperating to sort the foxen dead from those who were unconscious or injured.

  Rory handed Ms. Renard over to the wolven, who’d be coordinating the interrogation. The banter between them and the bearen revolved around which was more important: gathering vital intelligence against Khain, or graffiti cleanup duty. It was pretty good-natured for the most part. Khain’s plans had been foiled – for now – and another shiften had found his mate. Ben had been boasting to anyone willing to listen – and also people who were far too busy with other things – of the way Ivy had taken Ms. Renard down, and by the time Rory reached them, the story had evolved somewhat.

  “So she swung at her with the katana – hiiii-yah! Then she backflipped across the room…”

  Rory smacked him in the chest with the back of his hand. “Give me back my mate and go and do something useful,” he told him.

  He was pleased to note that Ivy didn’t question the word “mate”. She came happily into his arms, and Ben wandered off to irritate someone else for a while. They really needed to find that guy another hobby.

  Not cooking, though. The Light be merciful, not that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three months later…

  Brady and Ben stood awkwardly in their tuxes, waiting for the bride and groom to appear. They were going to act as witnesses while the Chief officiated the ceremony. Ivy had insisted she wanted to keep the ceremony small, family only, and when Ben had pointed out that she had no family, she’d smacked him around the back of the head and said, “Think about it, dummy.” She’d got the hang of the brother-sister dynamic thing really quickly.

  Brady looked across at Ben. Something had been weighing on his mind. “I get why you asked me to make the choice about which way to go. Back when Ivy was snatched, I mean.” Three months had passed since that day, but this was the first time he’d worked up the nerve to ask. “If Rory had chosen wrong and anything had happened to her, it would have broken him. But…why me?”

  Ben cast him a scornful glance. “For the sensitive, empathetic type you really can be a numbnuts,” he said. “That’s not why I asked you to choose.”

  “Oh.” Brady was taken aback. “Then why? I could have chosen wrong.”

  “No, you couldn’t. That’s why.” Ben sighed impatiently. “Brady, you always win at cards. Games of skill, games of chance – doesn’t matter. Haven’t you ever stopped to wonder why?”

  “I…” Brady opened his mouth, then shut it again, a thoughtful look on his face as the opening strains of Bach’s Air on the G String started to play on Jake’s sound system. The name of the music had resulted in much hilarity and a Most Tasteless Gift competition at the bachelor party. Rory was now the proud owner of thongs in leopard print, sequin and light-up musical varieties.

  It was pretty music, though, and the bride looked beautiful as she walked in wearing a simple white column dress, with ivy twined into her dark hair.

  The Chief recited the ceremony solemnly, and they echoed their vows back to him, never letting go of each other’s hands, never taking their eyes off each other. Every man there felt a pang of envy for the happy couple, tempered with hope that, now Rory had found his One True Mate, perhaps they could too.

  When Ivy said, “Until death do us part,” Ben turned his back, choking something about allergies and onions.

  After the vows, the squad surrounded Ivy and Rory, clapping him on the back, telling her she’d just made the worst mistake of her life, but they’d break his legs and tie them in a knot if he stepped out of line.

  Then, in the middle of the laughter, Ivy’s face fell. A look of deep apprehension and pain crossed her features.

  Rory took her cold hands, alarmed. “What is it? What’s wrong? Whatever it is, baby, I’ll make it right. I’m never going to let anything hurt you.”

  Wordlessly, she pointed over his shoulder. They all turned.

  Ben was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a massive grin on his face and a charred, sagging, blobbily frosted and clearly home-made monstrosity of a wedding cake clutched proudly in his hands.

  The Chief was the first to find his voice. "Not just no, but hell no."

  * * * * *

  For the last three months, their sex life at the firehouse had centered around Do Not Disturb signs on the locker room door, imaginative threats on Rory’s part, and a fair number of awkward incidents. That was how it was going to be until renovations were completed to turn the top floor of the building into a series of private rooms. For the wedding night, though, the squad had chipped in for a hotel room. It was opulent and elegant. Or maybe cozy and rustic. Or sleek and modern. Who cared? As Rory carried Ivy over the threshold, they only had eyes for each other.

  She managed to get her dress off without Rory tearing it or pulling off any of the tiny satin buttons in his eagerness, but her lacy “something blue” underwear didn’t survive the process.

  After stripping off his tux, she tugged on the band of his plain black boxers. “I thought you’d be wearing something a bit more…exotic.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “You heard about that?”

  “I heard about that.”

  He kissed her, and it was a little while before they broke apart.

  “I thought comedy underwear might spoil the mood a bit,” he said, then gasped as she wrapped her hand around his thick, rigid cock through the fabric of his underwear.

  “I don’t think anything could spoil the mood tonight,” she said and, still stroking him, led him towards the king-size bed.

  He rolled her onto her tummy and kissed his way up her calves, licking the sensitive dips at the backs of her knees and biting his way up her thighs before sinking his teeth into the globe of her ass and making her shriek, then moan when he worked his hand underneath her hips to play with her slick pussy. She sighed and arched her back, giving him room to push two fingers inside her and work her with his hand as he kissed her spine and her shoulder blades and the nape of her neck.

  Then he withdrew his fingers from her, leaving her achingly empty, and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her back against his body, onto her hands and knees. She stretched like a cat and dug her fingers into the comforter as he parted the petals of her wet pink pussy with his fingers, then licked upwards from her tingling clit until he could dip the point of his tongue into her channel.

  He kissed and licked, tonguing her intimate flesh until she was moaning helplessly and bucking back against him, pleading for his cock.

  He fitted the head of his dick against her body and braced himself above her with one arm, wrapping the other snugly around her waist, and he pushed inside her, exquisitely slowly, gritting his teeth against the intensity of the pleasure. When he was seated all the way inside her, he rolled his hips, flexing his buttocks, pushing himself as far inside her wet, willing body as he could get. She whimpered his n
ame, pressing back against him.

  He began to move, pulling out of her body and plunging back in with a steady, fierce rhythm that quickly had pleasure building in his loins and tightening his balls. His cock felt impossibly hard and thick, gripped by the velvety walls of her pussy, and as she fluttered and clenched around him, he knelt up, gripping her by the hips. His fingers dug into the soft white flesh hard enough to leave marks, and he worked in and out of her slick cunt until she spasmed around him, shouting and gasping, and he felt the telltale building tension in his balls.

  Then he leaned forward, his chest against her sweat-slick spine, and sank his teeth into the pale flesh where her neck met her shoulder, marking her. Claiming her as his.

  He found his bliss inside her body as the brief, sweet pain of the bite rocked her into another shuddering climax.

  Much, much later, he played with her hair as she drowsed against his chest, her face as sweet as a porcelain doll’s in repose. Except that he knew her to be fierce, and complex, and loyal, and his. His mate. He thought back to the time, a few brief months before, when he’d been sure he’d be killed some time by a flashover or a falling joist or burns or smoke…and had secretly longed for that day. Now he had everything to live for.

  He held her close as her breathing got deeper and softer and she drifted into sleep. His One True Mate. His saving grace. His solace.

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  THE END

  About the Author

  Hello, I am Georgette St. Clair, writer of hot, sexy romances which star all Alpha heroes, all the time. The road to love may be rocky and fraught with peril, (and humor and scorchtastic sex and healthy heapings of snark) but my shifters will stop at nothing to claim their fated mate.

  A little about me: I live in Florida. My checkered career involved stints as a newspaper reporter, EMT, internet marketer, cocktail waitress, temp, nurse’s aide (but not all at the same time...)

  Now I’m living my perfect life, spending my days in a fantasy universe where I nudge my smart-mouthed, take-no-guff heroines onto the path that will set them on a collision course with true love.

  Check out my website for a complete list of titles and what’s coming soon. Or connect with me on Facebook.

  Also by Georgette St. Clair

  The Billion-weres series:

  The Billion-were Needs a Mate

  A Cub for the Billion-were

  Starcrossed Dating Agency series:

  The Vulfan’s True Mate (Starcrossed Dating Agency Book 1)

  The Dragon Claims His Treasure (Starcrossed Dating Agency Book 2)

  The Vulfan’s Dark Desires (Starcrossed Dating Agency Book 3)

  The Mating Game series:

  The Mating Game: Big Bad Wolf (The Mating Game Book 1)

  Dating a Dragon (The Mating Game Book 2)

  A Grizzly Kind of Love (The Mating Game Book 3)

  Tri-Valley Dragon series:

  Bride of the Dragon

  Love Burns

  Alpha Prime series:

  Shiftily Ever After (Alpha Prime Book 1)

  His Curvy Mate (Alpha Prime Book 2)

  Shifters of Silver Peak series:

  Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak

  Shifters of Silver Peak: Mate for a Month

  Shifters of Silver Peak: A Very Shifty Christmas

  Bridenapped series:

  Bridenapped: The Alpha Chronicles

  Bridenapped: The Alpha’s Choice

  Twin Alphas series:

  Twin Alphas: Claimed

  Twin Alphas: Desired

  Shifters, Inc series:

  The Alpha Meets His Match (A paranormal romance) (Shifters, Inc. Book 1)

  His Purrfect Mate (A Shifter Romance) (Shifters, Inc. Book 2)

  Pixie the Lion Tamer (Shifters, Inc. Book 3)

  Shifters, Inc. The Bear Who Loved Me (A BBW Paranormal Romance)

  Spotting His Leopard (Shifters, Inc.)

  Blue Moon Junction series:

  Blue Moon Shifters: The Alpha Claims a Mate (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 1)

  Blue Moon Shifters: The Bobcat’s Tale (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 2)

  Blue Moon Shifters: Hard to Bear (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 3)

  Blue Moon Shifters: My Heart Laid Bear (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 4)

  Timber Valley Pack series:

  Bride of the Alpha (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack Book 1)

  Purr for the Alpha (A Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack Book 2)

  Hard as Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack Book 3)

  Timber Valley Pack: Lynx on the Loose (A Paranormal Romance with Shifters)

  Taken by the Alpha (Timber Valley Pack Book 5)

  The Alpha Won’t Be Denied (Timber Valley Pack Book 6)

  Standalone titles:

  Grayslake: More than Mated: Grayslake: Furrever Yours (Kindle Worlds Novella)

  Badlands: The Lion’s Den

  The Dragon’s Christmas Wish