“You won’t miss it.” It was all he said before moving in on her.
Mariah didn’t have time to step out of the way or prevent his actions. She wasn’t sure she would have if given the opportunity to decide. Luther didn’t take a step forward but instead appeared to leap. At the same time, his scent became so strong it was all she could smell.
With a single movement, Luther lifted her under her arms and kept moving until her backside hit the wall behind her.
“Oh,” she cried out, her teeth instinctively lengthening as the change demanded its way forward so she could defend herself.
Not that she would stand a chance. Luther’s virile body pressed against hers, his cock already hard as stone.
“When you go, every male there will know you are not a single female,” he informed her in a voice so harsh it should have pissed her off.
At the moment, his actions turned her on enough she would argue how he howled later. Especially when he grabbed her chin, tilted her face to match his, then kissed her.
This was what she’d dreamed about since leaving him on the mountain. Her shoes fell to the floor with a thud and her fingers dug deep into his blond hair that still looked rather tousled. The whiskers on his cheek burned her jaw and soft flesh. It simply fed the fire already burning inside her.
Mariah wrapped her legs around his waist. Her pussy throbbed against her jeans and she ached for them to be off.
As if he read her mind, Luther slipped one hand under her sweater and his fingers reached up to the tip of her bra. In the next second, he yanked her away from the wall and turned, tossing her to the couch.
“You think you can control me, Cariboo,” she growled, her voice thick with passion and her teeth extended enough to garble her words.
The raw growl erupting from deep inside him created silver streaks across his blue orbs. “Tell me I haven’t controlled every dream since we’ve parted,” he challenged.
For a moment she was awestruck. How would he know that?
Mariah recovered quickly and leapt off the couch, coming at him and grabbing his T-shirt and wadding it into her fist.
She had to tilt her head back to see his face, but Mariah didn’t care. She wanted this male and was up to the challenge of taming him.
“No more than I’ve controlled yours,” she snarled then reached for the collar of his shirt and tugged, hard, until he lowered his mouth to hers. Instead of kissing him, she bit at his lower lip. “And I’ll say if I’m a single or mated female, Cariboo,” she whispered.
His eyes went almost completely silver when he lifted her off the floor.
“Don’t throw me on that couch again,” she warned him.
It wasn’t that his tossing her around didn’t make her swell with need. Already the den smelled so strongly of both their lust they were creating a new scent, a mixture of how both of them smelled. She could breathe it in all night. But Mariah needed to train her Cariboo, and the lessons had to start now.
Luther didn’t toss her. Instead he shoved the coffee table out of his way with one leg. Then, lowering her onto the couch, he came down on top of her but braced himself over her with one powerful arm.
“Every time you turned in that meadow, sensing you were being watched,” he began in a low, guttural tone that singed her flesh with desire. “Every time any male approached you, there was no doubt in your mind I was very near making sure he didn’t move in too close.”
Mariah managed a satisfied smile, loving how strong his urge to protect her was. She would show him how capable she was of protecting herself. But not too fast. Mariah knew his Cariboo nature was to guard everything that was his, and fight to a ruthless death with anyone who challenged that. His ways weren’t too far from hers.
“And when I soaked your dick with my come,” she whispered. “You knew, even as I ran away, who had claimed you.”
“You are my mate.”
“If I say I am,” she countered, unable to hide her small smile.
Luther growled and yanked her sweater, lifting her off the couch until he’d pulled it over her head and freed it from her arms. Immediately he went for the zipper on her jeans. His growls sounded frustrated only when it took him more than a minute to have her clothes on a pile on the floor. Then he paused, staring down at her body.
Mariah couldn’t think for a moment. He’d been in a whirlwind undressing her. Now that she stared up at him in only her bra and panties, she was able to see the complete admiration in his expression.
“You are so beautiful,” he uttered. “So fragile.”
“Maybe for a large brute like you I might appear fragile, but don’t forget for a moment, male, how well I can take care of myself.”
Luther smiled. Something told her she was suddenly seeing a side of him very few had ever seen. He looked—happy.
She reached up and scratched the tip of his nose. His clouded-over gaze cleared instantly and his attention shot from her cleavage exposed from her lace bra to her eyes.
“Undress,” she mouthed before he could utter some empty warning about demanding she belly up or another typical male comment.
Luther pushed off her and stood next to the couch. Mariah forgot to think, breathe or even swallow when he peeled his T-shirt from his powerfully muscular body. Everything bulged and flexed as Luther brought his shirt over his head and stripped it away from his body. She stared at his ripped muscles underneath tan, taut flesh. Small puckers and several long scars stretched across his torso. Her male wasn’t trying to be fierce and demanding of her, he was fierce and demanding.
When he sat on the end of her couch and pulled off his boots, Mariah hopped up to lean on her knees next to him. She ran her finger over the longest of his scars that ran from his shoulder down across his chest at an angle.
“How long have you been on your own?” she asked, noting the scar was fairly old.
“Since I was a cub,” he said, although his voice was relaxed, indifferent to the years he fought simply to survive and find his next kill.
She remembered him and the other two Cariboo males killing and feeding off the elk in the mountains. Mariah had witnessed a small peek into his life prior to running here to Prince George.
“Was your pack burned out too?” she asked.
Luther stood, unzipped his jeans then slid them down his legs.
“Yes.”
Mariah had forgotten the question. She stared at his large, long, thick cock and how incredibly hard it was. When she reached out and touched him, he flinched, sucked in a breath. She looked up at him.
“Don’t stop.” His words were so garbled with need and the change threatening his own body he was hard to understand.
Mariah stared up at him as she wrapped her fingers around the thickness of his shaft. Power soared through her when his eyes rolled back in his head and he fisted his hands on either side of his body. Luther was fighting for control, giving her what she wanted. And she wanted to explore this male she’d dreamed about every night for so many nights now. She had smelled him again and again during their run. Luther had kept a close watch on her, ready to betray his presence among lunewulf and attack to the death any male who had managed the upper paw with her. Had he smelled the truth in her words when she’d told him she could take care of herself? Did he understand how it meant she wanted him for more than his ability to kill?
She ran her fingers up and down the length of him. His scent grew stronger. His cock grew harder. Pre-come bubbled at his tip and she smeared it along his shaft. It changed his scent, making it thicker, more intoxicating. Mariah didn’t realize she was panting until she looked up his body and caught him staring down at her.
It was more than any aphrodisiac Mariah had ever experienced. Any male in her pack—her old pack—never came close to making her feel the way she did right now. Her flesh tingled. Her heart palpitated so hard in her chest it hurt. She panted as if she were in heat. And although she was nowhere near her cycle, the only time when lunewulf could co
nceive, Mariah felt the throbbing in her pussy as if she were.
Her senses were heightened. With each stroke, her fingers, soaked now from his pre-come, moved up and down him with ease. He grew, got thicker, became stiffer, yet he didn’t try to stop her. Mariah watched his breathing grow more ragged, his hard stomach rise and fall. She took in the hair that rose from where his umbilical cord had been cut from his mother to where it spread in tight curls across his chest. With so many scars, some merely hairlines while others were jagged puckered flesh where possibly he had struggled not to bleed out, Luther was still the image of perfection.
Her womb swelled with need for him to be inside her. Luther was so thick her fingers barely reached around him. Mariah quit stroking him. If he grew much more, she worried she wouldn’t be able to take all of him.
“My little white lunewulf,” Luther rumbled, his voice as thick with need as his scent.
“My Cariboo male,” she returned, and heat filled her insides.
“I think you’ve played enough.”
Mariah’s laughter didn’t sound as it usually did. She liked its sultry edge. “I might not be done playing.”
She squealed when Luther grabbed her. Her bra straps slipped off her shoulders then the thin pieces of material snapped.
“What?” Mariah cried out.
His extended fingernails were deadly knives. They barely brushed her hypersensitive flesh, yet she sucked in a haggard breath. By the time she exhaled, her bra was being tossed to the floor, ripped off her by his lengthened fingernails.
“Don’t you dare,” she cried out when he reached for her panties.
He was between her legs, and taking off her underwear was impossible unless he moved. Luther reached with his slightly changed hand. Mariah grabbed his wrist.
“I said no.”
Their eyes locked. Mariah held his gaze captive as she slipped her fingers under the side of her panties. Then allowing the change to burn through her veins, her spine prickled with tiny hairs that crawled up her neck. She extended her fingernails into long, razor-sharp claws and ripped the side of her panties.
Luther’s breath caught in her throat and the silver streaks of lightning reappeared in his blue eyes. She sliced the other side of her panties. Luther grabbed them and yanked them free from her body. The moment air swept over her pussy, cream covered her smooth flesh.
“My sweet little lunewulf,” Luther snarled.
“My name,” Mariah gasped. “Say my name.”
Luther’s rough finger stroked the entrance of her pussy. “Mariah,” he whispered.
“Luther!” she howled, arching off the couch.
His chuckle was deadly sounding. Mariah wasn’t worried when she stared up through lust-clouded eyes. She reached for him, grabbing his muscular arms and pulled him to her. Their mouths locked in a passionate kiss as his cock sank deep into her pussy.
She cried out into his mouth, and one of his large hands wrapped around the back of her head as he began moving inside her. They fucked as lovers would who had been apart from each other for too long. Passion held thick in the air. Their scents were heady with lust, but it soon changed into a stronger, sweeter, more pure aroma.
Love!
Was it love?
Mariah remembered how wonderful her sire and mother smelled when they embraced. This wasn’t the same scent. She and Luther had created their own aroma. It was an enticing, beautiful smell so strong, so powerful she doubted it would ever fade.
Mariah remembered her mother had once told her, Love didn’t smell simply because you wanted it to. She had said, Love will grow forever. It will never die, although it can be killed. At the time, Mariah had snarled at her mother for howling riddles. Mariah had been even more infuriated when her mother simply smiled. She was afraid she might have that same stupid smile on her face now.
Luther began a low growl. Mariah tasted it as much as she heard it. His cock thrust deeper and deeper inside her. She was crushed into the couch, her legs wrapped around his thick, powerful torso. Each time he buried himself farther inside her hot, soaked pussy, pressure grew until it was unbearable.
His growl grew and she felt his body tense. Mariah ran her fingertips, which were now back to their human form, along his flesh. Muscles quivered under her touch. Her mother and sire had barely known each other when they had mated, yet their love had been at its strongest when they died. Her sire’s litter and her mother’s litter had believed the two of them a good match. Mariah wished now she had asked for more details. Although in the end, she had witnessed hundreds of times when her litter had run with the clean smell of happiness. Maybe that was all she needed to know.
“Mariah, you are…” His words broke off into a thundering growl.
As her orgasm erupted inside her, Luther’s control released and he pumped his come into her.
“You’re mine,” she finished for him.
Chapter Four
Johann Rousseau’s den turned out to be a spacious layout with cubs running around and a happy mate who, with the help of other females, had laid out quite a spread of steaks, burgers and fish. Not only were there quite a few lunewulf there, who had run down from the Yukon Territory, but also quite a few from the Prince George pack.
Luther would have loved to have arrived with Mariah, but as she pointed out, with no surviving sire, he needed to ask her pack leader for the right to mate with her. Sometimes pack laws really sucked. So instead, he’d returned to his den, changing into his fur this time and running along the outskirts of town then into the country until he reached Toubec’s ranch. Gratefully, his cousins had already left to sniff out females. They might or might not come to Rousseau’s evening kill. Luther didn’t care if they did or not. He’d come with the other Cariboo to Rousseau’s den.
“Rock Toubec,” Rousseau said formally after they’d enjoyed his kill and many were lingering behind the den in a spacious yard. “Alger and his cousins did a good job on the new dens for the lunewulf who have just arrived from the north.”
Rousseau sniffed the air and gave Luther a hard look. Luther kept his expression blank and made sure his scent remained neutral. There was no keeping Mariah’s smell off him. Not that he wanted her aroma to ever leave his flesh. He would howl to the pack leader soon enough. Now, with so many around them and the evening kill having just been enjoyed wasn’t the time.
“The Alger males are staying out in the row of dens,” Toubec informed the pack leader.
Toubec hadn’t growled at all over the change in Luther’s scent. Possibly the older Cariboo hadn’t noticed Luther smelling any different than he had the first time he met him. Toubec ran the large ranch with the help of quite a few Cariboo. The male hadn’t appeared all that interested in giving Luther a second glance after allowing the Algers an available den.
“Good to know he can hammer a nail. There’s plenty of work on the ranch,” Toubec added.
Rousseau was dwarfed standing between Luther and Rock Toubec but didn’t seem to notice. “Herrwulf might have more jobs as well. The pack is continually growing.”
“Not my fault you lunewulf keep breeding,” Toubec snarled, but then snorted, which might be the large male’s version of a laugh. “I’ve always got work on my land for strong males.”
A mated lunewulf couple howled for Rousseau. As if to back what Toubec had just said, a large group of cubs surrounded them. Rousseau turned from Toubec and Luther without a word and swooped the youngest cub into his arms and tossed him into the air. The excited cub was half changed when Rousseau put him back on the ground, and instantly tried crawling up the male’s leg to be tossed into the air again.
Toubec turned his back on Rousseau and faced Luther. “Your scent has changed,” he grumbled under his breath. His harsh, piercing glare was fierce as he stared Luther head-on. If anyone in the yard behind Rousseau’s den smelled the showdown between the two large Cariboo males, no one sniffed their direction.
“Yes, it has,” Luther said simply, matching
Toubec’s soft-spoken growl. He continued keeping all his emotions in check. This pack had treated him well so far. Luther wouldn’t dishonor Rousseau by snarling with the older Cariboo here.
“She is lunewulf.”
“Yes.”
“Come around and see me after high noon tomorrow.” He added in a lower voice. “My mate isn’t much on anyone howling around her den much before that.”
Toubec shifted his attention and focused on a lunewulf female, who sensed his attention and turned from a small group where she’d been standing. She walked up to Toubec and wrapped her arms around his thick waist. The male growled as he lowered his head and sniffed his mate.
Luther now understood. Toubec hadn’t smelled confrontational because he wasn’t. The male understood. Luther hadn’t given a lot of thought to mating while up in the Yukon Territory. Up until Mariah had interrupted their kill with her strong, alluring scent, Luther would have sworn he wouldn’t mate anytime soon. There was something to be howled about running free in the mountains. Yet he knew now, with every breath he took, running in those mountains wouldn’t be the same without Mariah by his side.
“You owe me no favors,” he told the Cariboo.
Toubec raised his face from sniffing his mate and stared at Luther with hard, attentive eyes. “That’s true,” he grumbled in a low growl. “I don’t plan on giving you any.”
“But if you’re willing,” Luther pressed, standing tall before the mated male, “I would be honored if your mate went over to the female by the door and asked her to join us.”
He and Mariah had made love now in their flesh as well as fur. Mariah and the other lunewulf who had run down here hadn’t yet chosen a pack leader. Luther didn’t care much about pack politics but he did care about Mariah. He would honor her, and their traditions and do this right.
Toubec and his mate turned their heads at the same time. Luther watched Mariah, who’d just stepped outside of Rousseau’s den, and waited for her to sniff him out.
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