by Maia Dylan
“At least with all of us, there is some protection and safety in numbers,” Micah supposed. “But I do worry about Neve here in the house by herself. Kingi and Maggie will be back in a couple of days, but in the meantime, I don’t think she should be left here alone.”
“Good thinking,” Ariana replied thoughtfully and glanced up at Ryan. He smiled and nodded, knowing exactly what she was thinking because he was thinking the exact same thing. “Ryan and I can stay here until they get back.”
“At least we have a date now,” Ryan said quietly. He felt his blood turn to ice at the thought. “December twenty-second. So, we have three weeks to come up with a way to solve this thing without it taking my mate.”
Ariana snuggled further into his arms, and Ryan sighed. Three weeks was not a long time. And if they hadn’t figured out a way around this damn prophecy by the time those three weeks were up, Ryan had a plan of his own. Ariana didn’t know it, but if in the moment the prophecy must be fulfilled it looked like she would need to bleed out to fulfill it, then he would go with her. He would not let her take that final journey into the next life without him exactly where he was meant to be, in this life and the next. Right by her side.
* * * *
Ariana drifted in a sea of sexual sensation that had her heart pounding, her head spinning, and her pussy aching with the need to be filled. She and Ryan had said good-bye to her sisters and their mates about thirty minutes ago, and now they lay in each other’s arms, in her bedroom upstairs. Despite the fact that they were both naked, and he lay above her, his hips cradled by hers, they did nothing but make out.
It felt so good. She could kiss her wolf for the rest of her life and never regret a damn thing. Not wanting to take that thought any further, she deepened the kiss, reveling in Ryan’s throaty growl of appreciation. Pulling back, he sipped from her lips a few times before pressing his forehead to hers.
He held her gaze as he flexed his hips gently until he slid all the way inside her. Ariana gasped and arched her neck at the feeling of him buried to the hilt within her.
“Damn, baby.” His voice was deep, with an edge of rasp to it, and made her shiver. “You are so damn wet for me. There is no place I would rather be than balls deep inside you. Fuck.” He started to move, gently at first, sliding in and out of her in a steady rhythm. Ariana felt her arousal building within her just as slow. Ryan always knew what she needed. No matter whatever else was going on, he always knew what she needed.
The afternoon had been an emotional one. Ariana had thought that they would lose Neve, and she had been filled with pain and loss at the idea. When they crested the ridge and saw her standing tall and wielding her power and her element with deadly skill, Ariana had stood in awe for a moment. She suddenly had an idea what losing her might be like for the other Elementals. It had distressed her more than she had admitted even to herself.
Ryan loved her slow and steady, just what she needed to ground herself in the here and now and reaffirm for herself that she was still alive. She needed to be an active participant in their lovemaking. She wanted Ryan to feel as well loved and cherished as he made her feel. Placing her feet against the mattress, she pressed up with her hips, meeting his downward thrust and driving him hard into her.
“Shit!” Ryan growled against her neck, and she groaned her approval. His rhythm faltered when she rose to meet him again and their hips came together with a driving force. “Baby, as much as I love it when you do that, I’m too fucking close,” Ryan rasped into her ear before he sat up slightly, slid his hands beneath her knees, and pulled her legs up onto his shoulders.
Ariana groaned when he pulled out, and couldn’t help crying out when he slammed back into her.
“That’s it, baby.” Ryan’s voice was harsh with arousal. “In this position, I can fuck you hard, and all you can do is take it and enjoy.”
Ariana whimpered when he pounded into her again.
“I can feel your beautiful wet pussy pulsing against my cock, baby. God…damn! You feel so fucking hot!”
Ariana lost all coherent thought. Her entire focus slipped away to narrow on the point where her mate’s body shuttled in and out of hers. She could feel the orgasm Ryan had built slowly beginning, swelling to frightening proportions within her. Then Ryan added a hard twist of his hips when he bottomed out within her, pressing against her clit, and that was it.
She threw her head back and screamed as her entire body shook with the release that rocketed through her. It felt as if she had left her body and was thrown into the atmosphere, so high she felt she could actually see stars. She threw both hands out to the side and slammed them against the mattress, her hands fisting into the sheets.
Vaguely she heard Ryan roaring his own release, and she felt his cock swell within her before flooding her with heat. She felt Ryan shudder against her, dropping her legs gently to the mattress as he collapsed against her. Both fought to draw air into their lungs, and as soon as Ariana could loosen her fingers enough to release the bedsheets, she drew both her arms up and around Ryan’s shoulders, pulling him even closer to her.
“I love you,” she whispered and felt Ryan smiling against the sensitive skin of her neck, and she smiled into the darkness. He reached beneath her and pulled her even tighter against him.
“You’re mine, baby.” Ryan pressed an openmouthed kiss to her neck, making Ariana shiver at the feel of it. “And once this prophecy is over, and you and I are back safely in Freedom Springs, we will find the nearest bed, and right here”—he pressed another openmouthed kiss to the same spot, pressing his teeth lightly against the sensitive skin of her neck—“this is where I will claim you. You will wear my mark, and every man will know what I have known from the moment I first heard your voice on the phone. You belong to me. As surely as I do you. I love you, Ariana.”
Ariana felt a sudden warmth spread through her at his words. No matter how many times she heard the words, they thrilled her every damn time. They snuggled and kissed, sharing more words of love and more than their fair share of laughter, before Ryan slid from the bed. Ariana rolled over and pulled the pillow against her chest as she listened to him moving around in the adjoining bathroom. When Ryan started the bath and Ariana heard the rush of water, her thoughts turned to her Elemental sister.
“Casey, are you asleep?” Ariana queried down their link.
There was a moment of silence before a rather sleepy yet grumpy voice came back to her. “Yeah, I was! Now? Not so much!”
Ariana smiled, and although she should feel guilty, she got a thrill out of waking her sister because, well, Casey was her younger sister, and it was Ariana’s right and privilege to torment her at every possible moment.
“How is she?” Ariana hated to think of Neve suffering or in pain in that hotel room. Casey and Micah had relieved Travis and Fiona when they left her last night.
“She’s fine, Ari,” Casey was quick to advise. “She woke up a while ago, and we talked for a bit. Then she dropped off into more of a healing sleep rather than unconsciousness.”
“Did she tell you what happened this afternoon?”
“Yeah, she did. She ran up onto the ridge with the intention of simply blowing off some energy. She was mad as hell at herself because those two trigger-happy assholes both managed to sneak up on her without her hearing them approach. They had her dead to rights before she even noticed she was no longer alone. She only had a moment to react, calling the rain down as fast as she could, but they each got a shot off. I think if she hadn’t actually dived to the right as she did, they would have killed her.”
Ryan stepped out of the bathroom, and she enjoyed the view of him walking across the bedroom toward her in all his nake, yummy glory.
“Gross! I don’t need to be connected to you while you are drooling all over your mate’s tallywhacker! And oh my God! Why in the hell did I have to word it that way?” Casey grumbled loudly down their link.
“I don’t know, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear a
bout it, or feel what you’re feeling either.”
Ariana laughed out loud when Fiona’s voice came over the link, just as sleepy and grumpy as Casey’s. Ryan must have known that she was talking with her sisters, as he simply lay down behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Why the hell am I listening to the two of you talk about Ryan’s schlong!”
“I can’t help myself! My man is hot!” Ariana sent back. The only thing that would have made this exchange better would have been—
“Please, have mercy on a woman with two gunshot wounds.” Neve’s tired yet amused voice had all of them calling to her excitedly, all of them asking her how she was in five different ways.
“Okay! Okay! Quiet the hell up!” Neve laughed, and the others quietened down. “I’m sore, but I’m alive. And, to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to come off that ridge alive, so all in all, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.”
“And so you fucking should!” Fiona exclaimed. “You were wickedly badass yesterday! I can only hope to have the amount of control over my power you had today. Damn, girl!”
The four of them chatted for a few moments, and by the time they said good night, Ariana was feeling relieved that Neve was going to be okay.
“Have a good catch-up with your sisters?” Ryan murmured from behind her, and she rolled to face him.
“Yeah, I did,” Ariana said on a sigh and snuggled her head up under Ryan’s chin. “We spoke with Neve, too, and she’s going to be okay.”
“That’s good to hear.” Ryan pulled back so that he could look into her face, and she frowned at the thoughtful look on his face. “There was a shitload of stuff that happened today that will require some time to process, but one thing’s bothering me. You told me that day we argued up at the Pagan Stone that you dreamed of me as you were growing up, right?”
Ariana nodded, wondering where he was going with this.
“And from what I can understand, that was because our connection as fated mates opened that connection for us. This afternoon, Neve talked about seeing Liam go from cub to boy and then bear to man in her dreams. So, is she his mate? Or isn’t she?”
Ariana’s eyes widened in shock as she thought through what Ryan had said. She flicked back through the memories of the day to replay what Neve had said, and Ryan was right. She hadn’t really picked up on it, as Neve’s pain had been all consuming down their link at the time.
“I’m-I’m not sure,” Ariana answered.
“Well, let’s just file it with the million other things we need to think about and answer over the next four months.” Ryan rolled out of the bed and held a hand out to her to help her up. Ariana’s gaze was drawn to Ryan’s body, and she felt her arousal spark within her again. He really was one hot-as-hell wolf shifter. And he was all hers.
“You know,” Ariana said slyly as she moved around him, letting her hand run down over the firm globe of his ass, “the girls and I were talking about how hot you were just now.”
Ryan’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and he stopped moving. “Really? How on earth did that come up in conversation?”
“Casey told me to stop drooling over your tallywhacker.” Ariana walked backward toward the bathroom, putting some serious swing in her hips.
“Tallywhacker? I think I may have been slightly sexually victimized by that conversation.” Ryan crossed his arms across his chest and gave her that half grin that got her heart pounding. His dick thickened even further and bobbed in her direction.
“Awww, poor baby.” Ariana pouted and licked her lips slowly, loving that his eyes darkened at the move, and a low growl filled the room. “Want me to drool all over your tallywhacker to make it feel better?”
“Oh. Hell. Yes!” Ryan growled, then leapt after her as she ran laughing into the bathroom.
Chapter 7
“Shit! Call the rain, Neve! Call it now, fuck!” Ryan shouted as he hopped from one foot to the other, trying to avoid the flames that licked across the ground. Jesus H. Christ! They’re going to burn my fucking house down!
The Elementals were all practicing combining their powers, to see what type of weapons they had in their arsenal. Ariana was hitting earth targets with pinpoint accuracy with Fiona’s fireballs. They had all witnessed how formidable Neve’s talent was five days ago, so figured there wasn’t much more they needed from her. When the moment came, she would call the rain and just drown the bastards.
They had been working in his backyard, and it had been going great until a series of circumstances that involved Travis and Cole sneaking up on Fiona and Ryan tickling Ariana. This in turn saw Fiona throwing a sheet of fire, and Ariana blowing air across it and forcing it down, setting fire to his yard, his woodpile, and the side of his house!
Neve leapt up from where she had been resting on his porch, stepped to the stairs that led to his yard, and started to weave her hands. Almost before their eyes, clouds began to form above them, and a light rain began to fall. Neve moved her hands together and swept them from right to left, almost as if she were mimicking the swing of a sword, and the water changed direction in midair. It flew against the side of his house with more force than it had actually fallen from the sky and doused the flames that had been working their way up the wall.
After a few more wet moments, the rain stopped miraculously, and there was not a flicker of flame left to see. Everybody stood still for a moment, soaked to the skin and slightly shocked at the speed with which Neve had been able to pull moisture out of the sky, when moments before it had been only slightly overcast.
Ryan turned to look at Neve where she stood on the porch. “Damn, Neve!” he shouted, fist pumping the air. “Check you out! You saved my house!”
Ryan heard Casey, Ariana, Fiona, and his brothers break into applause. He was about to join in when he caught Neve waver a little on her feet. He had taken only two steps in her direction when she started to keel over. Swiftly calculating the distance between him and the porch, he knew he would never make it in time. His brothers cursed as they, too, saw what was happening and came to the same conclusion. Neve was going down, and unfortunately, it was down the concrete stairs that led to his porch.
Calling on every ounce of shifter speed he had, and refusing to admit he couldn’t help her, he hurled himself in her direction. He was still about ten feet from her when a blur came from the left and collected her before she could make contact with the unforgiving concrete. For a man who could turn into a five hundred–pound bear, Liam was one fast son of a bitch.
“Gotcha,” Liam murmured as he lifted Neve gently up against him, walked up the steps, and placed her on the lounger she had been resting in. “Christ, Neve, the doctor told you to take it easy, not overtax yourself into exhaustion again.”
Neve, who had looked a little pale and shocked initially, now looked pissed. “What did you expect me to do, Liam? Let the field and the house go up in flame?”
“We could have got the garden hose and put the damn thing out.” Liam moved back from her and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Liam, why—” Ryan started to say in an attempt to stop Liam from putting his foot further into his mouth, but apparently the stupid prick wanted to shove his whole fucking leg in.
“But you just had to use your powers and exhaust yourself. You have to take better care of yourself! We have just over two weeks before we face Aeron and his goons again, and all of us need to be at our best—not flaking out with just the slightest use of power! You have to work within your fucking limits and know what the hell you are capable of, and recognize what you’re not! We all run the risk of ending up dead if you can’t do your part in this damn thing. So, stop exerting yourself until you fucking well have to!” Liam’s tone had turning whipping, and he basically spat the last few words out in Neve’s direction.
Fuck.
Ryan’s mouth dropped at the words that came out of his deputy’s mouth. Liam was a protector of the weak, someone who would stand up for just about anyone
he came across. His actions since Ryan had met that man showed him that. He had never raised his voice or spoken ill of anyone who didn’t deserve it in the short time they had known each other. And Neve had done nothing but do exactly what Ryan had asked her to do. The other Elementals had all gathered on the porch by now, and Ryan could see the rage boiling within all four of them. All of their eyes were glowing eerily, and it was clear that they were about to blow.
Ryan was a smart wolf. He had been raised to recognize when a woman was about to go nuclear on her man, so he stepped back. As did his brothers. All of whom had been raised by the same woman. He figured they would wait until the war was over and then collect the pieces of his deputy and try to put him back together.
“Jesus, Liam,” Fiona growled from behind them. “Just because an inane comment or thought makes its way into your head, doesn’t mean that it should come out of your mouth. Like ever.”
Liam turned quickly, as if he had been surprised that the rest of them were still there. The frown on his face transformed quickly into wariness, and Ryan thought that Liam just might be more intelligent than he had first assumed.
“Look, I’m sorry if I sounded a little harsh,” Liam said as he held his hands out as if he were calming someone. Which in all fairness, he was. “But I think that—”
“Shut. Up!” Neve yelled as she stood from the lounge chair. The weakness that she had shown just minutes before was gone, and in its place was the steel strength of determination. And judging by her clenched fists and glowing eyes, it came with a large serving of rage. The sound of thunder in the distance was a pretty fucking large sign, too. “You don’t get to think or have an opinion on me. Ever. Christ, Liam, you think you have the right to heap that shit on me? You can have your doubts. Hell, you can even fucking share them with everyone. You are entitled to your own opinion. But to tell me that I can get us all killed? Seriously? Any one of us could fuck up, Liam. Even you. And if that happens, then we will all have to deal with it and fight our way out. But if you go in thinking that it’s over for us, or that because of me and my weaknesses”—Neve basically spat that word out with contempt—“that we are dead in the water before we’ve even begun to fight? Then I might as well take up weaving and start making the fucking handbasket we’ll all ride to hell in now! You think you know who I am or what I am capable of? Perhaps if you had taken the time to actually get to know me, then your opinion on this would mean more than it does.”