“I am now that you are safe in my arms again.” He leaned down and carefully kissed my lips.
I had a million questions but forgot them all as I pulled him down to me, ignoring the pain in my face. I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could. He sucked in a breath but kept on kissing me.
Jasper pulled my towel off and softly kissed every bruise and scrape on my body. “I’m sorry, Hayden.” He winced a little as he held himself over me. I gently put my hands on his chest and pushed him onto his back.
“Why in the world are you sorry?” I whispered.
He looked at me, his anger at himself evident. “I couldn’t stop them.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
Then it was my turn to try and kiss him better.
Actually, you can kiss him better, I thought to myself. I pulled myself up a bit, careful not to put any weight on his chest. I nibbled on his jaw. He closed his eyes and groaned.
I quickly picked a safe green wave and gently ran my fingers over his chest and sides, kissing as I went.
He gasped in pain as his ribs moved back into place and finally healed properly.
“Sorry,” I whispered into his chest and I kissed my way back up to his mouth.
He put his hands on my waist and rolled me so I was underneath him again. “Don’t be.” And with that said, he spent the next few hours making sure that I wasn’t.
*****
He lay on his arm and watched her sleep. By the moons she was beautiful. Her long dark hair was laying every which way under and around her. The corner of her mouth curled up and she whispered something too softly for him to hear.
She rolled a bit toward him. Jasper reached over and brushed some of the hair away from her face. Her poor face.
He felt his chest tighten and his fists and jaw clenched in anger.
Ryland was lucky Luke had gotten to him first.
Hayden’s brow knitted together and he felt fear. His anger escalated.
“Jasper.”
All the love he felt associated with his name decimated all of his own negative feelings at the moment. Her frown relaxed and his body followed suit. She moved closer to him, still asleep, her swollen face resting against his chest.
Never again, he promised her silently as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. As long as I’m alive, as long as I breathe. Anyone who thinks of harming you will have to come through me.
He placed his lips on her forehead and closed his eyes. “I give my life to you,” he whispered.
Her fingers touched his cheek and his heart sped up. “What did you say?” she mumbled sleepily.
Jasper looked into her eyes. “That I promise to keep you safe.” His voice caught in his throat and he cleared it. “I promise to fight for you. Die for you, if I must. My life is yours, now.”
“Hmmm.” She gazed back at him, contemplating his declaration. “Well, we can’t have you dying for me. I like you much better alive.” She gave him a half grin. “If you’re life is mine, now, is it mine to order to stay alive?”
“I suppose it is.” He smiled at her.
“Then promise me only one thing.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me you’ll never leave me.”
He felt sadness and fear at the prospect of not having him around. He kissed her softly. “I promise.” That wasn’t going to be a hard one to keep. Just the thought of being away from her for an instant nearly choked him.
She felt him tense and ran her thumb across his lips. He caught it gently between his teeth.
He felt her need rise and he groaned. He rolled himself on top of her, pulled her arms over her head, and used his teeth along her jaw.
She was shaking under him. Her hips were moving against him, urging him to take her. “By the moons, Shlova.” He groaned. All he could feel was her need, her surrender. He didn’t think he’d be able to be gentle.
She panted, “God, Jasper. I need you to fill me. Now. Hard.” She squirmed under him and they both gasped as he gave her what she wanted.
He pulled out and thrust in again. She moaned. “More,” she whispered. He pulled out again and pushed back in hard and deep. Again. And again.
He felt her start to tighten around him and he stopped completely sheathed in her. Her whole body was shaking with the need for release. He pressed his weight into his hips, keeping her pinned against the mattress.
Hayden whimpered. “Please. Oh, god, Jasper, please.”
Please, indeed, he thought. I’m shaking just as hard as you are! He pulled back just a fraction of an inch before thrusting into her as deeply as he could. It was all she needed. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath before crying out his name.
He felt her love, her pleasure, her happiness, and any thought he might have had about composing himself so he could pleasure her again vanished.
She was happy. Even after everything she had just gone through, she was happy. He made her happy. He groaned as he spilled himself inside of her, amazed at how that one emotion had been enough to set him off.
He rolled off of her and pulled her close. “A shlova yan,” he whispered to her.
She smiled up at him. “A shlova yan jer.”
*****
We went down for breakfast the next morning.
“Hey, Jasper! You got your shirt on!” teased Brice.
“It’s nice to be able to move again.” He smiled and leaned down to kiss me tenderly. I blushed to everyone’s amusement.
Luke came up to us, amazement clear on his face.
“You are fated to her?”
Jasper nodded and pulled me closer.
“No wonder you put up such a fight. And here I thought it was your great sense of duty. I think it’s a good thing you were already hurt. I may not have walked away from that one!”
Jasper looked down lovingly at me then back to Luke. “And as much as I love you, Luke, I think I might have killed you if I hadn’t been hurt. I need to thank you for bringing her back to me even if you did take her away in the first place.”
Luke grinned at him. “What are brothers for?”
I was my turn to be amazed. “Brothers?”
Jasper looked at me. “To make a long story short, my parents found a wolf pup in the woods while hunting one day. Luke’s pack had been killed. They took him in, hoping that being raised by them might change who he would obey. We grew up together. But the older we got, the more obvious it became that you can’t beat genetics. And so Luke went his own way when he became of age.”
I looked at Luke. “Did they order you to kill Jasper?”
He nodded. “They always order me to kill Jasper. He is one of their first targets in any fight.”
“So you were disobeying orders even before you killed Ryland. So much for genetics.”
“It would seem that way.”
I turned to Jasper. “And you. Before we left for the ridge Brice said that you changed plans so that more of the cats would make it home from battle. Did you do that often?”
He thought for a minute. “Only if I could think of a better way to go about it.”
“But you disobeyed orders just the same.”
Everyone was thinking hard.
Tara laughed. “I guess one of these days we’ll stop being amazed by all of this.”
Everyone sat down to eat.
We were just finishing up when Fillian and Brinnan came running into the house. My uncle ran to me and hugged me to him. “Thank goodness you’re ok!”
I blushed. “Hey, uncle.”
He held me out at arms’ length and touched my face lightly. “Fillian, dear, is there any way to fix that?”
She put her hands on my face and closed her eyes. “The cheek bone is broken,” she muttered to herself. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain. I sucked in a breath and hissed through my teeth. Jasper caught me when my knees gave out.
Fillian’s hands left my face and Brinnan smiled. “Much better. How do you
feel?”
I touched my face, pleasantly surprised that all the swelling was gone. “Great!”
“What about you, Jasper?” asked Fillian. “Want to try your ribs again?”
“I’m good, thank you. Hayden fixed me up last night.”
She shook her head. “Of course she did.” She laughed. “May as well get used to this. You know, it is interesting how her energy stayed in you for so long and kept me from being able to heal you.”
Tara’s kitchen was packed with the people I now considered my family. I looked around at all of them, smiling.
“Glad to be back, Shlova?”
I nodded.
“You remember?” Luke’s eyes were big.
Jasper nodded. “Tun. Yan?”
Luke nodded. “Tun.”
“Am I right to guess tun is yes?” I looked at them.
Jasper nodded. He put his hand on my knee and I leaned my head against his shoulder.
I hadn’t realized how tired I still was until I felt him lay me on the bed. He wrapped his arms around me, his breath warming the back of my neck. I moved as close to him as I could and sighed.
“So when were you thinking of going dragon hunting?” He chuckled.
I rolled around so that I was facing him. “Well, I need to talk to Dodge first, but if he doesn’t mind waiting a little bit longer, I think I’d like to stay here and enjoy us for a while.”
I shivered as he ran his fingers down my back.
“Now that,” he murmured as he kissed along my neck, “sounds like a great plan to me.”
Chapter 7
The next month was uneventful and perfect. I spent a couple of hours each day practicing with my swords and my colors. Luke and Brice had a great time sparring with me as wolf and jaguar while Jasper and Zane watched from on the grass, laughing every time I would outsmart one of them and give them a playful jab.
But for the most part I relaxed with Jasper, spending our time by the pond and exploring the countryside.
On one particularly lazy afternoon, we were walking hand in hand through the woods when we came across a beautiful meadow. The creek we had been following ran along the edge of the trees. Tall green grass blended with the light blue grass that grew around any water source here.
We sat in the sun, my back against his chest, his arms wrapped around me. I sighed as he kissed my hair.
“This place is perfect.”
Jasper mumbled in agreement. He pulled me tighter against him and had me almost completely wrapped in a bear hug. “Do you suppose you would feel like leaving Tara and Ben’s eventually?” He asked me quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was thinking that if you were planning on living here for any period of time that we could get our own home.”
I looked at back at him, butterflies in my stomach. He was blushing a little.
“Our own home,” I repeated, liking the sound of it. “That sounds perfect.” I twisted a little in his hug so I could kiss him. “And where would we have our home?”
“Well,” he grinned at me. “How about here?”
“We didn’t just happen to find this place today, did we?” I laughed.
“No. I’ve had the birds scouting for me the past week.” He blushed again.
I chuckled at him and turned back to gaze across the clearing. “It’s perfect. How do you say perfect?”
“Sertant.”
“Sant est sertant.” I chuckled and he smiled.
“I was thinking we could build the house over there.” He pointed to the far end of the clearing. “It should be well sheltered from the wind this winter and still be far enough from the creek that if it floods in the spring we won’t have to worry about it.”
I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m sorry. I’m laughing at myself. I didn’t realize there was so much to think about when it came to building a house.”
I felt him smile in my hair.
“So when can we start?” I was suddenly eager to start this new life with him.
“As soon as you want.”
“Tomorrow?”
He laughed. “Not this afternoon?” he teased.
I turned myself around and wrapped my legs around his waist. “I have plans this afternoon,” I muttered as I nuzzled his neck.
He pulled back a bit and looked at me, his blue eyes smiling. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?” he asked.
I smiled at him. “Once or twice.”
He leaned down and kissed me hungrily. I crushed myself against him then started laughing as something landed on my shoulder.
“If it’s not the horse, it’s the bird,” I whispered in his ear. He groaned and pulled back to look at her.
Jasper grinned. “Well, thank you for the warning. That would have been embarrassing!”
The blue bird flew off and sat in a tree.
“It seems the others didn’t know about your afternoon plans and have decided it is time to start building our house. They should be here in about five minutes.”
My jaw dropped. “Everyone knew about this? What if I’d said no!”
His eyes widened into sky blue saucers. “I guess it never occurred to me that you might not want to.”
I laughed at him. “Don’t worry. It never crossed my mind to say no. How could it. Our own home, just me and you. In our perfect little clearing. I mean really, how could life get any better than this?”
He lay on his back, arms behind his head, looking intently at me. He seemed about to say something then stopped. He flashed a smile that made my heart jump and before I could react I was pinned on my back, my arms stretched over my head, his weight holding me down. He nibbled gently on my neck and moved along my jaw to my lips. I moaned, unable to move and not really planning to.
“Hey! Where are you guys?” called Phlann.
I turned red and giggled. “Let’s remember that for later,” I whispered to Jasper. He smiled and gave me a quick kiss before sticking his head up over the grass.
“Over here!”
I sat up, trying to brush off as much grass off of my clothes as possible. Jasper picked a few stray pieces out of my hair as our friends made their way over to us.
Luke grinned at us and laughed. “Shouldn’t you finish building your house before you start trying to fill it with cubs?”
Jasper turned the reddest I had ever seen him. My heart flipped in my chest. Now there was something I hadn’t thought about!
“Is that even possible?” I asked. “I mean, he’s a cat. I’m part human, part Wedelve...” There was also the fact that I hadn’t had a period since crossing over.
“Who knows what’s possible anymore these days,” said Shanus. He handed Jasper an axe and smiled.
Jasper seemed glad to have an excuse to get off the topic and proceeded to show them where the house was going to go.
Everyone had a job and by the time the sun was starting to set we had enough logs to build our little house.
We all headed back to Tara’s for a late supper and a good night’s sleep.
Upstairs in our room, Jasper rubbed the knots out of my back. He chuckled as I jumped a bit when he pushed on one to get it to loosen.
“Not funny,” I mumbled into my pillow. “Where I come from, you call a contractor, and voila! You have a house”.
He laughed. “Well, where’s the fun in that. If that’s all we had to do, I would never have gotten to see you swear at a log!
“Stupid log,” I grumbled. My job had been stripping the logs as they came out of the bush. One of those logs had been extremely opposed to being naked. I laughed. “It’s just lucky Tara came to save it. I was about to burn it.”
He laughed even harder and I knew he was remembering how the log had won. I had taken the strip of bark I was working on with both hands and pulled as hard as I could. Instead of peeling off like it was supposed to, the bark had broken off, sending me falling backwards to land ung
racefully on my rear end.
I rolled onto my back and looked up at him. “You on the other hand, looked amazing chopping down those trees!” I remembered his skin wet with sweat, his shirt off. The way his muscles had stood out as the men all pulled the logs out of the bush. His eyes so bright when he would glance at me while I stripped the logs with Tara and Prense. But most of all was the feeling I got when I thought about the fact that he was doing this for us.
I reached up and touched his face. “You are the most amazing thing to have ever happened to me. I can’t even begin to describe how I am feeling right now,” I whispered. “There are so many words, yet none of them seem quite right.”
He gazed at me, covering my hand with his. “Try.”
I blushed a little. Feelings had never been my strong point. “I feel lucky.”
“Shanceigh.” He bent down and kissed me softly.
“Amazed.”
“Surpynt.” Another kiss.
“Awed. Loved. Excited.”
“Appornt, shlovant, essonant.” Each word was accented by a soft kiss.
“But most of all. Most of all, I am happy.”
He smiled at me like I had just made him the happiest man in this world. He leaned down still holding my hands. “I love you,” he whispered into my neck as he started to nibble on me. He glanced at me sideways and grinned. “Now,” he said as he stretched my arms over my head. “Where were we before being so rudely interrupted this afternoon?”
I laughed as I readjusted my body so I was fully under him. “I think we were right about here...”
*****
The next morning, every muscle in my body complained as we made our way back to the clearing. Today’s projects were log notching and collecting moss to insulate between the logs.
I volunteered for moss collection. Jasper grinned at me. “Don’t go too far and get yourself lost, now.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and walked away. I could hear Tara a little further to the left putting moss in her sacs.
The day was beautiful. I picked the moss and put it in the bags without really thinking about it. My mind started to wander. Luke’s comment about the cubs started to nag at me. Was it possible? Could it even really happen? And if it could, was it something I wanted. I wasn’t sure. Was it something Jasper wanted? I was pretty positive the answer was yes.
Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' Page 15