Sarita. He pushed his voice into her head, felt her open to him. He reached out, taking her into his arms, holding her and letting her feel his love, his understanding. I need you, please come back to me.
Oh Goddess, mate, can you make me forget? Just for a moment? Her voice was a keening whimper through his mind.
In an instant, he pushed her against the wall, running his teeth along the side of her neck, her collarbone, startling her and making her shake.
“You want me rough and wild, querida?” He whispered, looking into indigo eyes. She whined, her wolf flashing in her eyes.
He pressed his lips to hers gently, willing her to open to a soft, tender touch. This time he felt the walls in her head come down as he licked within. This kiss was an envoy, an ambassadorial mission from his wolf to hers. She shivered in his arms and he gave her more of himself, a hand cupping and shaping her breast, stroking the nipple to tantalizing hardness before bowing his head to take it into his mouth.
Her body leapt forward into his touch, and her hands sank into soft black hair. He made love to her with lips and tongue and gentle hands as he pulled her clothing away, then his own. Taking her hand, he led her back to the bedroom, laid her down on the bed. He kissed her again, stirring his senses as he stroked against her tongue with his own, showing her that all those edges they’d discovered together, though exciting, were just a part of the lovemaking possible between them. His hands stroked down her body, cupping and kneading her skin as he beckoned her closer with a series of kisses across her forehead, down her nose, catching her lips again with his own and trying her full lower lip between his teeth.
This time, when a whimper emerged from her throat, it was one of bliss. He stoked the fire, adding more pressure to the caresses on her breasts, her belly, moving lower to cup her intimately. When she began to rock against his hand, he spread her, reaching within to draw forth her honey, drawing it along silken flesh and the swollen nub of her clit.
“I need…” she whispered.
I know, he spoke into her mind, his fingers working against her body. I love you, querida. He poured his emotions into their link, needing to annihilate everything but the way he was making her feel.
Sarita’s eyes opened, looking into the sweet face of her mate. His every emotion was written on his usually stoic face, and she reached for him with her wolf, with her heart and mind. Everything within her needed him. His hand was moving too slowly to bring her to completion, but the pressure—oh, it ached and it burned—her legs fell back, and her belly went molten, and she was ready to beg for the release she needed so badly.
“Please…” she whimpered. His head bowed, he took a hard brown nipple between his teeth, and she arched into his lips. Suddenly the slow rub against her clit became a faster circling, and she felt herself teetering on the edge of the abyss. She wanted his bite, wanted her orgasm to tug her under in a riptide, instead he gave her this crazy warmth that seemed to multiply and expand in her chest until she was gasping for breath. He was stretching her out, drawing her thin, and this thing between them, this heat, this passion, it wasn’t like their previous lovemaking, but it was everything built on that. Better, it made her wolf hum in satisfaction as she slid headlong into that heat.
Instead of the riptide she’d hoped would tug her under, this wave lifted her up, filled her, and swept through her as the heat shattered and everything disappeared into sweet oblivion. She felt her body exploding in climax, wave after wave of it rushing through her, and dimly she heard her voice shouting her mate’s name.
When the achy heat slipped from her body, leaving her warm and messy on the bed, she opened her arms and her body to her mate, and she made love to him with all that sweetness until she was reaching for that edge again. This time, as the heat burst within her, she clasped his hand in her own, bringing it to her lips and sinking her teeth into the flesh of his palm. Her wolf listened with feral joy to his shout of triumph.
He sank into a puddle of warmth next to her, meeting her smile with one of his own.
“I love you,” he whispered, pushing the hair back from her face.
She smiled, nodding up at him. “I love you too, mate.”
Eyes cast downward, she hesitated.
“Hey, querida, what is it?” He lifted her chin, willing her to meet his eyes.
“I feel different, after what happened in New York. I wasn’t sure if you would feel the same about me.”
“My lovely little mate.” He pulled her closer. “You and I are a constant, lover. There is no way I will ever stop loving you. We will grow and change, but this love, this bond between us, it is sacred. It is inviolate. You and I, we are everything.”
Everything. She felt the word reverberate in her head as he said it, and she snuggled closer to his chest. Finally, as she yawned in exhaustion, the word slipped between her lips. “Everything.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sarita awoke to a knocking at the door of the suite. She opened it to find her mother on the other side, arms open to embrace her.
“Hey, Littlebit.” Bianca’s voice was soothing as she took her daughter into her arms. “Let’s talk.”
Sarita held onto her tightly for a moment before pulling away. “Okay. Want to walk over to the cafeteria and get some coffee?”
“Sure. I’ll wait out here in the hallway while you get dressed.”
Sarita slipped back into the room to throw on some clothes, and she leaned over the hard-muscled man in their bed. Her mate looked innocent in sleep, though she wondered if that had ever been a word to accurately describe him. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and his eyes opened. Smiling up at her, he drew her hand down to where his cock stirred to life under the sheets.
“Sorry, love. Mom’s here. I’m off to have a cup of coffee and a mother-daughter chat.” Sarita almost laughed at how quickly he pushed her hand away from his erection at the mention of her mother.
“I’ll see you later then, querida.” He smiled, “Do you want me to come with you to go see Chandra?”
“Chandra?” She shook her head slightly, confused. She and the tattoo artist knew each other, but they weren’t close friends.
“Querida, you killed a Blood-Drinker. That’s not something many wolves have done, if any. You should be tattooed, and somewhere very visible.”
“Angelo, no, I don’t want…”
“Sarita. Don’t hide your light, love. You are the Third Usher. In spite of your mixed feelings on the killing, you know it will be recognized by the pack. It would be frowned upon if you weren’t tattooed.”
Sarita looked at her mate’s earnest face. While he certainly didn’t lack for tattoos, he wasn’t exactly covered in them the way her uncle Fionn was. If he said it was important, it probably was. She sighed, kissed his forehead again.
“I’ll talk to Mom about it,” she promised.
Sarita and her mom walked to the cafeteria in relative silence, Mac and Gerard falling in step with Bianca’s bodyguards in the background. When they finally sat down, facing each other over steaming cups of coffee, she asked the question that had sprung to mind.
“How many wolves have you killed?” she asked.
“Prior to becoming the Guardian of the Amazon Pack, I was challenged eight times. Half were settled by blooding. After becoming the Guardian, I was challenged twice. I killed both challengers. At the Council where Amazon was ratified, I killed your uncle Patrick, and I killed Shelly Digby. I have not been challenged since becoming the Alpha of Amazon.”
“Did you challenge anyone before becoming the Guardian?” Sarita asked.
“Once. I blooded her, and she acquiesced.”
“You’ve killed eight wolves.” Sarita looked at her mother’s face, but it gave no hint of any of the emotions that accompanied those acts of violence. Her mother was the quintessential A
lpha wolf, strong and assured with no regrets.
“Yes.”
“Were you tattooed every time?”
“Yes, and the bloodings too. This is part of our culture, Littlebit. You were tattooed upon your first shift. You know it’s no big deal.”
“It’s not the tattoo that concerns me, Mom. I killed another sentient being in cold blood.”
“Yes,” Bianca acknowledged. With a sigh, she took Sarita’s hand in her own. Sarita watched the emotions crowding her mother’s face. “Ita, Gerard told me what happened. How you hunted down a Blood-Drinker to heal Mac. How the Blood-Drinker asked you for a mercy killing rather than returning him to his own kind where he would have been enslaved and tortured and slowly bled to death. He also told me he offered to take the Blood-Drinker’s life so you wouldn’t have to. Is all of that accurate?”
Sarita nodded, biting her lip.
“Ita, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You exacted a vengeance against the hive that attacked your packmate. You did it both quickly and mercifully. You have earned the honor of a tattoo. I understand your reticence, the way you hurt at the very idea of taking pride in ending the life of another, but this is the way of our people. We are warriors. You did this in service to your friend and to your pack.”
“Mom, I don’t know that I’ll ever be matter-of-fact about this.”
“Oh, baby.” Bianca’s eyes filled as she took her daughter’s hand. “I didn’t raise you to be the type of woman who could take a life lightly. I am sorry you’re hurting, but believe me when I say, as your mother and as your Alpha, I believe this was necessary. If there had been any other way, my sweet, brilliant Sarita would have found it.”
Sarita felt the dam burst at those words, and she squeezed her mom’s hand. She looked up into lavender eyes, warm with love. “Okay, I guess I’ll be tattooed then.” She felt a smile wavering on her face.
Chandra greeted Sarita with a welcoming hug. “C’mon in, Littlebit, I’ve been expecting you.” The other woman smiled, gesturing to the chair. Sarita sat, smiling back. She liked Chandra, though she didn’t know her well. The tattoo artist was one of the more spiritual wolves Sarita had ever met, able to make a sort of spiritual shift in order to commune with the Goddess as wolf while still in her human form, allowing her to see the vision for the tattoo as she worked.
Chandra gestured to Sarita’s shirt, urging her to remove it, so she did. Bare from the waist up, she lay back as the tattoo artist laid her hands on Sarita’s shoulders. The artist sucked in a sharp breath, then relaxed, a smile on her face.
“The tattoo will go from here…” She tapped a point on Sarita’s left shoulder, “Across your chest to here.” The right shoulder. “It will take me some time. Would you like to call a friend or your handsome mate to sit with you?”
Sarita thought about that. More than anyone, right now she needed her Guide.
Bear, will you come sit with me while Chandra tattoos me?
Of course, Italove. That rumbling Bear voice in her head, so sweet and familiar, faded out as she closed her eyes and waited for the tattoo artist to begin.
“What’s it like?” she asked over the needle’s hum.
Chandra studied her warily. “You know when you’re working on a piece of art, and you go by feel, by instinct? And you know exactly where to put the brush or exactly how hard to press with the pencil?”
Sarita nodded, “Of course.”
“It’s like that, but it’s also as if the Goddess is pushing the needle for me.” Chandra stopped to dab a bit of blood from Sarita’s collarbone. “I’m sorry. It will hurt a bit more over the bones,” she warned as she started again.
“It’s okay,” Sarita smiled, and it was. She didn’t mind the whispers of pain as the needle bored through her skin. She felt for the edges of sensation, pulled them into herself. She didn’t know how long she lay there before she smelled and heard Bear approaching. When he settled into the chair next to her, she opened her eyes and studied him.
“They’re coming, aren’t they? The First Blood? They’re part of it?” she asked, looking at his beloved, bearded face. He nodded.
“What do I need to do? Have you been there before?”
“The cave where we lived, when the world was young and the Mother had created Raven, Bear, and Cat, that’s where you’ll find Her. Sarita, the Goddess is only going to pass through our world when you set Her free. She’s not meant to be corporeal, you know. Her home is in the Spirit world. Making Herself corporeal to be with us, that’s what enabled Her to be trapped in the first place.”
“Why did She only create one of each of you, yet so many of us?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but somehow, that’s what happened, Ita. She wasn’t done yet. She wasn’t supposed to be trapped there. She created us with the intention of giving us each our own family, our own species to care for, like She does with the wolves, which is Her favored form.”
“So you and Annie are like gods?” Sarita’s brow furrowed. There was an idea she’d never contemplated.
“Demi-gods at best, dear one,” Bear laughed, the sound a sweet thunder in the small room. “More like you than like the Mother. But we would have been Guides to our own kind. When the Mother was trapped, she had to use what energy she had left to place the albino gene in the population, to allow us to look for your family, for Bianca. It took generations, Ita.”
“Can She do that, after I free Her? Can She make a species of Were-Bears and Were-Panthers?”
“Ita…” Bear sighed, scrubbing one giant hand over his face. “I’ve lived long enough to know that that may not be what I want anymore.”
The needle buzzed and hummed, and Chandra reached out and stroked Sarita’s face. “Little one, there is more to this than just the Blood-Drinker’s life and death. May I mark it on your skin?”
Sarita nodded. “Of course, Chandra,” she answered, curiosity piqued.
“Why don’t you want others of your own kind, Bear?”
“I want Mac. And to grow old with him. I don’t want to choose between him and raising an entire species of children. I’m selfish.”
“I understand.” Sarita felt a smile turning her lips up. “It’s your ‘Why Me?’ moment, isn’t it?”
The big man growled, the sound more irritation than anger.
“And if it is?”
“Maybe you should ask what Mac wants.” She winked, then closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound of the needle.
“It’s very hot in the cave,” Gerard rumbled. “Like in your glass studio.”
“I’ll pack light. Bring a bikini, work on my tan,” she deadpanned.
“There’s a hot spring, giving off the heat,” he continued, ignoring her teasing. “You’ll have to go into the water.”
“Will it burn me?” She opened one eye to see him shaking his head.
“No. But it won’t be comfortable unless you are in wolf form.”
“Well, then I’ll get hairy. No big deal.”
“Sarita, everything about this is a big deal.” Gerard’s usually gentle voice came out growly and waspish, annoyed.
“Fine. It’s a big deal. I’m a big deal. You’re a big deal. I don’t know what you want me to say, Bear.”
“Free will, Sarita. Everything is up to you. You decide the price. Do you understand? Kathy agreed to be a decoy to buy you time, but in the end, you make the choice.”
“I don’t understand, Bear.” She looked at him, finally seeing the way his face creased and sagged with fatigue.
“I know. I’m sorry, Sarita. Sara, she knew she was going to die, but she knew that because of that, you would be born. She knew you’d be born into a world where there was a network of wolves at your back. She knew you’d be here, prepared for this. When Sara flew into the wolf’s m
outh, she did it to ensure that Bianca would live. Fionn had to kill Gordon Kirk to break his hold on Kathy so she couldn’t kill Bianca and you. Everything was foretold, up until the moment you will walk into that cave. That’s when it all ends. No one knows what choice you’ll make.”
Sarita felt a swell of panic churning her gut. “What choice? What are the options? How am I supposed to know what to choose?”
“I don’t know, Italove.” Gerard frowned. “My job is to keep you alive long enough to make it.”
“Is the Goddess playing games with us then?” Her voice sounded bitter even to her.
Chandra paused her tattooing, wiping a bit more blood from Sarita’s skin. “Never think that, Sarita.” The tattoo artist smiled at her, “I’m done.”
Sarita stood, examining the tattoo across her chest in the mirror. A crescent moon, a Cheshire cat smile, graced her chest from shoulder to shoulder. There, in the very center, was a scale in balance, and it was bleeding.
It was gruesome.
It was powerful.
It was beautiful, terrible, strange.
“Usher.” Chandra bowed her head before offering her neck in obeisance. Gently, Sarita took it between her teeth, feeling the other woman’s loyalty rush into her, buoy her up.
“Thank you, Chandra.” She didn’t feel like smiling, but she did.
Maybe she didn’t know what the choice would be, but she knew the stakes would be balance, and the price would be blood.
Chapter Nineteen
Angelo met Geoff at the compound gate. Bear was with Sarita, so he took Mac as his bodyguard. Geoff managed to look excited and annoyed at once, a kid in a candy store playing it cool. His eyes widened as they drank in the sight of what was basically the wolf capital of the world. Finally, the veneer of annoyance cracked, and he grinned at Angelo.
“Damn, Zalez.” The FBI specialist rubbed his hands together with delight. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many wolves in one place. This is awesome!”
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